Overlooking the basic fire safety precautions can lead to scenarios that can cost you your income, job and even life. Inefficient housekeeping, carelessness, and ignorance are the major reasons for fire in workplaces and residential properties.

Being a major cause of accidents in homes and offices across the United States, every business and house owner should take fire hazards seriously. As per the U.S. Fire Administration report on both residential and non-residential property fire damages, in 2017 alone, a sum of 10,516,400,000 was lost to fire damages.

The risk of fire hazards can never be eliminated completely. Sticking to some standard precautionary steps to prevent fire at the workplace and residential property, however, is mandatory.

Know the causes

The ideal means to prevent any hazard is to understand and foresee the possible causes. The US Fire Administration classified the major cause of fire at residential and non-residential properties as the following.

• Intentional
• Playing with Heat Source
• Smoking
• Heating
• Cooking
• Electrical Malfunction
• Appliances
• Open Flame
• Other Heat
• Other Equipment
• Natural
• Equipment Malfunction
• Other Unintentional, Careles

Precautionary steps to address any concerns related to the above list should start from the installation or even at the property planning/construction level. This is where an expert new contracting or restoration specialist can make a huge difference.

Prevention strategy checklist:

• Prevent unnecessary trash clutters within the property
• Do not try to contain fat/oil fire using water as it will help the fire spread
• Inspect and service electrically appliances periodically
• Keep the fire exits free
• Have special storage areas for hazardous materials
• Have designated smoking areas
• Know the limits of your power circuit and prevent overloading it, for example running multiple industry level appliances from a single power source using something like a low capacity electrical connector can be risky.
• Check whether appliances are overheating and turn them off and in an unplugged state when not in use
• For offices, having a designated fire warden and some mock fire drill test and putting together an emergency plan is mandatory. Residential buildings can invest in fire extinguishers and a fire escape plan which has to be familiarized by everyone. Training family members to use fire extinguishers can come in handy.
• Spend on quality equipment and wiring as these can turn out to be critical in preventing unwanted fires.

As noted above, fire safety is something that has been foreseen and acted on when you are building/designing a home or office. A company like Titan Restoration specializing in both fire damage restoration and new construction can be the ideal source who can walk with you throughout the journey and ensure that your property is designed in the best and the safest possible ways in terms of alleviating fire hazards.