The devastation of a workplace fire goes beyond the obvious and concerning risk of injury or death of your staff. Buildings, business equipment, stock and in some cases data, when stored on site, can be damaged or destroyed.
Fire can therefore have a significant impact on your business being able to continue to operate, causing significant logistical difficulties, unexpected costs and an inability to continue to run when data is destroyed, resulting is cashflow problems and loss of reputation.
Preventing fire damage
In an ideal situation, you want to detect fire at the earliest stage, and minimise it’s spread to reduce the risk of damage. Having the correct systems in place give you an invaluable advantage.
It can be hard to know exactly where to start, so we’ve outlined four considerations you should make when it comes to fire detection and prevention.
Smoke Detection
You’ve heard there’s no smoke without fire – and for good reason. Smoke is one of the first visible signs of fire and advanced systems can be triggered by smoke in particle form, allowing for extremely early detection and the best chance of preventing damage or injury to anyone in the building.
What may not be commonly known is that the smoke detector you choose can (and should) be tailored to the area of the building it is installed in. Our team can advise on which smoke detection system, is best suited for the various areas of your premises.
There are four smoke detection systems to consider:
- Photo electric smoke detection
- Dual sensor smoke detection
- Air sampling smoke detection
- Beam detection
You can read about the differences between these systems, however, our team will be happy to point you in the right direction. This will be based on the size of your premises, its main function, whether it be industrial or office space, and how the building is occupied.
Heat detection
Another early sign of fire is of course, heat. Our systems detect potential fires or other heat-related risk in your premises. Different heat detectors include:
- Fixed temperature heat detectors
- Rate-of-rise heat detectors
- Combination heat detectors
- Linear heat detectors
These vary in function from monitoring when a temperature passes a predefined threshold to rapid temperature increases, including potential fire incidents. Deciding on which system to install, may again come down to the type of premises and how it is used/occupied. For example, if you’re looking for a heat detector for a commercial kitchen, it may differ to the heat detector you would install in a mechanical space.
Incident Response
Before we move onto the final two detection systems, let’s talk about what happens when fire is detected.
With pre-planned processes in place, we can not only detect early but mitigate risk/damage with quick response times, ensuring minimal impact on your operations. It’s crucial to have processes in place not only for peace of mind, but to protect your people and premises.
To enquire about our response procedures, get in touch with our team today.
Flame detection
Another visible and obvious sign of fire is the presence of flames. For premises such as oil and gas facilities, chemical plants, and manufacturing facilities, where fire risk is high and can involve toxic materials, detecting fire is extremely important.
Flames have unique elements and can be detected in two ways:
- Ultraviolet flame detection
- Infrared flame detection
Read more about flame detection.
Supplementary Detection
To be fully protected, there are a couple of other detection options you can consider:
- Thermal radiometric heat detection – detecting thermal abnormalities in your premises
- Camera analytic smoke detection – using video analytics to detect smoke and other fire patterns
Again, these may be considered in facilities with high risk, such as power plants, airports, train stations, critical infrastructure, or warehouse facilities.
We know it can be overwhelming to begin the process of putting solutions in place, but our team of experts are on hand to help with the decision-making process, ensuring you select the best products and services for your premises.
Alongside our detection systems, fire suppression systems help to minimise damage to your people, possessions and property. Read more about our gas, foam and water mist systems.
“When visiting a client site, they advised a small fire had occurred the night before within an electrical cabinet, caused by a circuit overheating.
Fortunately, the room where the electrical cupboard is situated has a fire suppression system fitted which requires two separate zones to be activated before the system discharges.
The first zone on the fire suppression panel was alerted due to the activation of a smoke detector sensing the smoke from the electrical cupboard fire. Also, due to the fire suppression panel being monitored via the site wide fire detection system, the fire service was alerted along with site security staff.
However, before the fire service arrived on site, the second zone activated on the gas suppression control panel, and the system discharged extinguishing the fire.
As a result, firstly of the detection devices detecting the smoke from the fire and secondly the suppression agent discharging, only a damaged door and contactor required replacement within the room, and overall, the incident caused minimal disruption to site operations, with production starting a few hours after the first zone activation.
The cylinders were refilled and returned to site ready for the next potential incident.
The potential damage, disruption and risk to life of a fire incident are all too real as our client can testify to in the above incident. However, having the correct systems in place to mitigate the identified risks is invaluable in protecting site operatives and minimising damage and disruption to business operations.”
- Sales Director, Atexa Fire and Security Solutions
Contact us today to get started on protecting your business from potential fire risk.
