Preparing for a fire

When it comes to fires you never know truly what might happen in the future. All you can do is make sure you are prepared as possible to help prevent it, and should it still happen to slow it down to allow for an evacuation. One of the important procedures to go through is a fire risk assessment.  Today building owners have not just a moral obligation but also a legal obligation to keep their property up to date and as fire-safe as is possible. Such an assessment is for a professional inspector. Recent updates in legislation mean buildings must be sade for members of the public, employees and tenants in flats or HMOs.

Determine how safe the premises are

Fire engineering assessors or inspectors can identify whether individuals are at risk, identify hazards, where things are not up to code and generate a report for you to make improvements and changes to better create a safe environment and protect people and the property. This is not just about compliance with the law, it is about saving lives, getting a better deal on your insurance and limiting damage. With a thorough assessment, you can better prepare and control so that people have more time to evacuate, the emergency services have more time to get there and less damage spread through the building.

As well as the horror of being responsible for people’s deaths and injuries avoided you can save money. As well as having a responsible person for the property in charge of maintenance of your fire safety equipment a professional safety assessment on a yearly basis will keep you in the best place to minimise risk.

Working together for compliance and safety

With a professional assessor undertaking a fire risk assessment working with your chosen responsible person they can work together to carry out a comprehensive look at all kinds of things. That includes fire safety equipment like emergency lighting, extinguishers, alarms and escape routes. If there is a problem of non-compliance they will talk to you about it and advise you of the steps you need to take to fix it. The assessment report they create from their visit can also be handed in to your insurance company to show them you are meeting your obligations legally and that you have been recently assessed by the right people.

Conclusion

When you are looking at fire safety you can talk to a fire engineering expert for advice and you need to have an assessment at least once a year by a professional fire risk inspector. If you have not done so you should remedy this. Arrange for a visit and bring your building up to a better level of safety. It is good business sense and it is being a good human being. A lot of the fires in buildings happen when they could have been prevented. A lot of injuries, damage and deaths happen when they could have been prevented or at least lowered.