Churchesfire Business Development Manager, Mark Hughes gives us his thoughts on why businesses sometimes overlook their fire safety needs and how it only takes one little spark to cause a fire.
"I have been in the industry for many years from my humble days as a fire fighter to now sitting in a room with a board of directors discussing their fire protection strategy and even now I’m amazed at the lack of acceptance by a few, of the importance of good housekeeping with their proactive protection against fire.
Most of us when faced with giving an example of a ‘Fire’ will immediately describe a building with flames reaching the sky, fire fighters rushing from fire engines to tackle the blaze and the devastation thereafter and this is not our fault; as to most this scene is normally what we all see through media or passing in our daily lives.
So when faced with discussing how we protect against it, we immediately see the conclusion that it will become an expensive and time consuming task and push the matter back down the line of importance, reject the idea of change and it becomes another hidden agenda.
But this is not the start of a fire, this is the end. Fire starts small (very small) from anything from a spark, to a heat spot; there are many, many ways, but the main factor is, it starts small.
Small enough that with good proactive fire protection the scene we describe above could be prevented; by using good risk assessment, fire training, the right extinguishers, an automatic fire alarm, sprinklers etc.
So why in so many cases do we ignore these facts?
Actually more fires go unreported in the UK then actual record events, why? Because those fires were dealt with while they were still small by the proactive person who made sure they were protected. But because they go unseen and unreported most would not give it a second thought.
Fire protection is more than just complying with insurance or with the law when you need to; It’s about you, others, your business and taking time to get it right; which can make all the difference between becoming an unreported rather than a reported."
Written by Mark Hughes
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