Proper fire safety training for your employees is critical. During a fire, every second counts, and your employees may have just minutes to act accordingly to minimize damage to property and loss of life. During the rush and sensory overload that often comes with a fire, it’s easy to panic; flames, thick smoke, heat, and danger can seriously impair a person’s ability to think clearly.
For this reason, your employees must understand and practice general fire and safety training to stay as safe as possible:
How to Execute Fire Safety Training for Your Employees
The threat of a fire emergency is very real in any workplace, regardless of the industry or setting. Even though higher rates of workplace fires occur in industrial and manufacturing facilities, fires can happen anywhere.
One of the most important ways to train your employees in fire safety is to ensure they know the basics:
How to Recognize Fire Hazards
There are three “ingredients” fires need to ignite and grow. They are:
- A source of ignition (heat)
- Anything flammable (fuel)
- Something to feed it (oxygen)
When these three components are present, fires can start and spread rapidly. Your employees should be able to recognize these fire hazards and keep them separated.
What to Do When a Fire Occurs
Once your employees can identify the three ingredients fires need to thrive, they should have a clear plan of what to do if they notice a fire, like activating a fire alarm or calling for professional help. Every workplace should have a transparent communication chain to ensure everyone’s safety.
If they see a fire, they must activate the fire alarms FIRST, then call 911. Some workplaces have fire alarms with third-party monitors that can sense a fire. Inform your employees whether or not a third party is monitoring the fire system. If so, a call to 911 may not be necessary.
The Core Fire Safety Procedures
Once the fire alarm sounds, your evacuation plan goes into action. Every workplace has unique safety needs, requirements, and evacuation procedures. General fire and safety training for the workplace must cover each of these. At the minimum, employees must be familiar with:
- The emergency evacuation plan
- What each person’s role in the evacuation plan is
- Through which exits they should leave the building
- How to close doors behind them and why they should do it
- Where the groups of employees must meet once they have left the building
- What they should do if they encounter fire or heavy smoke as they are leaving
Making sure your employees understand all these points is the best way to give them a high chance of getting out of the building safely and away from danger.
Employees and Fire Safety Equipment
Everyone should know how to use fire extinguishers in the workplace. Professional fire safety and fire extinguisher training programs can provide this educational service. In addition, employees should understand the workings of any fire suppression or sprinkler system. Understanding how to fight a fire is just as important as knowing when to walk away from one. Employees should understand the basics of general fire and receive regular safety retraining.
Why Having a Sprinkler System Is a Critical Part of Fire Safety
Studies from the NFPA show that automatic fire sprinkler systems can reduce fire damage by up to 97 percent. A&A Fire Protection can provide any installation, inspection, and renovation services for your system. We also will help train your employees on how your sprinkler system works and how to use it in the event of a fire. Contact A&A Fire Protection today for more information.