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Fire Safety Checklist: Facility Manager
Fire can have a devastating effect on your business and poses a serious risk to the safety and welfare of your building’s occupants. Fire can cause property loss and damage to your building, business and assets. This can result in significant costs and lengthy downtime while repairs and rebuilding take place. Important data and other difficult to replace items can be destroyed which can have a huge impact on your business. To help facility managers protect against fire, Aegis Safe - the fire protection specialists, offers the following advice:
Conduct a fire safety audit to highlight potential fire risks around your facility. This will help you to determine the fire protection solutions required.
- Hazards will vary depending on the nature of your business or property. This can include electrical equipment, heating or kitchen appliances, combustible waste material and flammable liquids.
- Consulting with a fire protection specialist like Aegis Safe will help to ensure all your hazards are identified and the most appropriate fire protection solution is installed for your premises.
Keep up to date with regulations and legislation. As a facility manager, you must know your responsibilities when it comes to ethical and legal fire safety requirements. The Australian standards and other legislation relating to fire safety can change regularly so it’s important that you stay on top of things.
- Keep up to date on all national, state and local council based fire safety regulations and standards in relation to your fire protection equipment, the required maintenance and fire training. It’s a good idea to contact a fire protection specialist like Aegis Safe to help.
- Develop a fire prevention plan in accordance with the Australian Standard AS 3745:2010 “Planning for Emergencies in Facilities”.
- You must obtain your Fire Safety Statement annually from the date at which your previous Annual Fire Safety Statement or Fire Safety Certificate was obtained and submitted to your local council in sydney.
Install adequate fire protection equipment. The fire protection equipment you may need could include fire extinguishers, fire hose reels, emergency lights, fire doors and other passive fire solutions or more advanced fire detection and suppression systems. When deciding on the most suitable fire protection solution, you should consider:
- legislations and standards
- size and type of your building'
- Fire doors
- Fire hydrant systems
- Automatic Fire Detection & Alarm Systems
- Fire Extinguishers
- materials being handled on your premises
- purpose of your building (e.g.offices, manufacturing, materials storage)
Service and maintain your equipment: It is essential to have a high level of reliability when it comes to fire protection. Your fire protection systems and equipment should always perform to the standards that they were originally designed and installed.
- Regular testing of your systems and equipment can validate the functionality and help to uncover any issues or faults that may cause poor performance.
- The Australian Standard AS 1851-2005 - Maintenance of fire protection systems and equipment recommends that your fire protection systems be regularly inspected.
Provide appropriate signage for all your hazards, fire protection equipment and emergency exits.
- You should have clearly marked fire extinguishers and other fire safety equipment.
- Your emergency lights and exits signs should be visible so that in the event of an emergency people can evacuate and be directed to ensure a quick escape.
Training: You should have a confident team that is capable of responding appropriately in the event of a fire. This training is an invaluable investment and can substantially reduce the impact of a crisis.
- Everyone working in your facility should know how to respond in the event of a fire emergency and how to use the fire equipment onsite.
- Fire safety training should be included in your staff induction. Your new employees should be briefed and trained on what to do in the event of a fire.
- You should assign fire wardens. They should be fully trained on their responsibilities, your fire equipment and the emergency warning and communication systems in your premises.
It can seem overwhelming for some building managers to have to deal with mandatory fire audits, having to comply with strict standards and regulatory requirements as well as needing to keep clear and traceable records and reports. This is where Aegis Safe and our team of fire protection specialists can provide you with professional advice which helps take the stress out of maintaining your fire protection systems and will provide you and your management with peace of mind. Protect your business or property today with our fire extinguisher service Sydney.
If you’d like more information on how Aegis Safe can help protect your facility, please contact us on phone: 1300 859 529, email: [email protected] or visit our website: www.aegissafe.com.au.
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About Aegis Safe
Your safety and peace of mind is our objective. Aegis Safe has been helping our clients protect their staff and property with our full range of comprehensive fire protection solutions since 2009. We specialise in installing, inspecting, testing, diagnosing and repairing fire protection systems.