Getting Preventative Fire Analysis for Your Business Peace of Mind

Nonresidential building fires caused an estimated $3.16 billion in direct property loss across roughly 110,000 fires in 2023, which works out to about $29,000 per fire. If you don’t have the right insurance and investigation, that number quickly becomes more extensive. Plus, those numbers are primarily based on a typical small to medium-sized building. If you’re running a commercial enterprise with more employees or an industrial space, you can expect to pay much more.

Fire poses a significant risk to more than your building’s infrastructure. Employees can end up in the hospital, business assets can get damaged, and you can run into downtime that sends your financial documents into a downward spiral.

Securing a preventative fire analysis from our team at Dreiym Engineering is a significant way to lower your potential risk so you can address issues now, long before they become a serious concern.

Elevating Employee Safety and Well-being

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, nonresidential building fires injured an estimated 1,200 people and killed 130 in 2023. These are employees, clients, visitors, all the way down to your nightly cleaning staff. With a forensic fire analysis, you get proactive details about how to better manage your local facility.

Even if your building is 100% safe, you can implement other programming to ensure your team members are safe. For example, try to integrate solid safety protocols and procedures. Practicing something like fire drills every couple of months will train people where to go in the event of an emergency.

Speaking of training, you can learn from fire investigations to empower team members with the knowledge and insight necessary so they know how to maintain the property from hazards, are confident in how to evacuate, and pass this knowledge on to new team members.

A well-laid-out plan based on preventative fire analysis goes a long way to boosting the morale and productivity of your team. The more people feel safe in a space, the greater their ability to produce results.

Safeguarding Assets and Ensuring Business Continuity

Your business is more than your employees. While they are essential to your daily functioning, you likely have other assets. Company vehicles, data stores, cash on hand, equipment, and other items are just as susceptible to fire as anything else. In many cases, they are more at risk.

Do your best to work with professionals like our team and identify any potential fire hazards around your assets. A timely intervention can best mitigate fires from spreading to other areas of your building.

You’ll want to optimize your fire suppression systems. These vary based on the nature of your business, but can prevent so much damage and loss. A proper analysis will recommend everything from upgrading to something more modern to a system that sends out automated texts to all employees so everyone can get to safety quickly.

At Dreiym Engineering, we understand how vital operational continuity is to a business. We work with teams ranging from small retail shops to industrial oil production. The same underlying risk management issues can be addressed, albeit on different scales and scopes, to prevent fire from rushing through your business assets.

Realizing Long-Term Insurance Benefits

Insurance companies love fire safety measures. You can drastically reduce your business insurance expenses by implementing well-known and proven fire safety measures, just be sure they are aligned with local codes and regulations. Some examples include:

• Installing interconnected smoke detectors in all rooms with active notification and battery backups.
• Maintaining a fire suppression or water system that can reduce potential damage to assets and infrastructure.
• Using fire-resistant building materials in any renovations or business upgrades you make on your property.
• Introducing a regular inspection schedule and annual preventative fire analysis from experts so your team remains trained and proactive.
• Creating “defensible spaces” in your building by using fire-resistant doors and windows.
• Having clearly marked evacuation routes with easy access egresses to minimize the risk of physical harm and smoke inhalation.

Not only will safety measures like this help lower your expenses, but they will streamline the claims process. Our experienced engineers are frequently called in as legal experts after a fire occurs. Our forensic analysis helps identify how the fire started, why the fire began, and what measures should have been in place. We love working with businesses to set up systems that stop these negative experiences from happening.

Case in Point: A New Year’s Office Party Gone Wrong

Let’s paint a quick picture. Consider your office building in central Texas is hosting a New Year’s Eve party. Everything is going well, but someone accidentally put some aluminum foil in the microwave to heat up some hors d’oeuvres. After a minute or so, the sparking from the microwave causes a short and an electrical fire erupts in the kitchen.

Without fire doors and recently inspected alarms in the room, it is 10 minutes before someone starts to smell smoke. A curious (and possibly inebriated) partygoer opens the door to the employee kitchen, only to have flames stretch out into the main party room, quickly spreading around the space.

The result is people rush to the exit, causing panic and more physical harm as smoke fills the lungs and flames claim business property.

Yes, this is an extreme scenario, but with a fire alarm to alert partygoers, a fire suppression system to douse the flames, and fire-resistant doors to enclose the spread, the scenario becomes a lot more manageable (and significantly less expensive to operations).

Get the Insight You Need from Dreiym Engineering

Fire analysis and investigation services are almost always called in after the damage has been done. Why not flip this service on its head and get the preventative insights you need to proactively identify and address any fire risks in your business?

Partner with our team at Dreiym Engineering today and create a safe, insurance-positive space where your team members can relax and focus on the work at hand instead of worrying about a bad outlet or an accidental kitchen disaster. Contact our team today, and let’s schedule a consultation.

FAQs

What is a fire prevention checklist?

The goal of a fire prevention checklist is pretty straightforward. You are creating a systematic list to help identify and address any potential fire hazards. You want to curate a checklist that maintenance or someone on your staff runs through once a month. Things like inspecting smoke detectors, ensuring flammable materials are stored safely away, or ensuring your electrical system is running smoothly.

What are the four classifications of fire investigation?

Knowing the four classifications goes a long way to putting you in a preventative mindset. These include accidental, natural, incendiary, and undetermined.

An accident would be the microwave scenario we have already discussed. A natural fire is like lightning striking the building and combusting materials. Incendiary means the fire was deliberately ignited under circumstances in which the person knew it should not be ignited; arson is the criminal charge that may follow. Investigators have traditionally classified a fire cause as accidental, natural, incendiary or undetermined, and those categories persist in incident reporting systems. That classification chapter was removed from NFPA 921 beginning with the 2021 edition, because classifying a cause is treated as a separate exercise from determining it, and NFPA 921 is in any event a guide rather than a mandatory standard. What has not changed is the methodology: if the data do not support one hypothesis to the exclusion of other reasonable ones, the correct answer is that the cause is undetermined, not the most plausible-sounding guess.

What are the five elements that must be included in a fire prevention plan?

OSHA sets the contents of a fire prevention plan in 29 CFR 1910.39(c). The plan must include: a list of all major fire hazards, proper handling and storage procedures for hazardous materials, potential ignition sources and their control, and the type of fire protection equipment necessary to control each major hazard; procedures to control accumulations of flammable and combustible waste materials; procedures for regular maintenance of safeguards installed on heat-producing equipment to prevent accidental ignition; the name or job title of the employees responsible for maintaining equipment installed to prevent or control ignition sources or fires; and the name or job title of the employees responsible for control of fuel source hazards. The plan must be in writing and kept available to employees, except that an employer with ten or fewer employees may communicate it orally. Two related requirements sit elsewhere: informing employees of the fire hazards they are exposed to is 1910.39(d), and evacuation procedures and assembly points belong to the emergency action plan under 1910.38.

With most insurance companies, you’ll be in good standing if you have a solid fire prevention plan. This should include:

• Identification of fire hazards around the workplace.
• Procedures to control hazards and mitigate fire risk.
• Maintenance of any fire protection equipment or devices.
• Outline of ongoing employee training programs for comprehensive education.
• Displaying a clear emergency evacuation plan in the event of a fire.

Implementing these simple practices helps you protect employees, lower asset damage, and reduce any potential downtime your business may experience during a fire.