Fire safety should be a top concern when you’re looking at the health and safety plan for your office. Modern workplaces are more at risk of fires than ones in the past, and there’s one blatant reason for this. The modern office is full of electrical equipment and wiring that can easily cause an electrical fire at a moment’s notice. All you need is one blown fuse or a slight spark to start a fire that can spread through the office and cause thousands of pounds of property damage and put your local EMS’ fire records management system to good use.
Thankfully, there are ways to prevent office fires and to keep your property and employees safe. The best thing is they are easy for you to implement, so you don’t really have an excuse! Check out the tips here:
Fill your office with suitable fire deterrents
You can prevent office fires in their tracks by having things that will help you deter them. For instance, you need a fire extinguisher that doesn’t contain water. Similarly, you should avoid having a sprinkler system in an office because the water can literally cause more fires by damaging your electrical equipment. Instead, have smoke alarms, fire curtains, fire extinguishers and fire blankets on hand. All of these things will help you either put out the fire or prevent it from spreading.
Avoid over clogging plug sockets
One way to prevent office fires is to avoid clogging up plug sockets with numerous connections. If you have five or six things all plugged into the same socket, the amount of electrical current running through one location is absurd. It can easily lead to a fuse blowing that causes a spark that creates an electrical fire. You are genuinely better off investing in an electrician that can install multiple sockets around your office, rather than only relying on two or three to power your entire fleet of computers and devices.
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Hide all wires
Try as hard as you can to hide all the wires in your office. There are some really good cable management systems out there that will help you do this. Why does this help to prevent office fires? Simply put, if no wires can be seen, then they can’t be exposed to things like liquids. Someone can be sipping coffee on their desk, then spill it and it drips onto wires, which might cause an issue. Similarly, try to cover plug sockets as the connection is where a lot of fires start. Again, if liquid gets in there, sparks can fly – literally. Keeping wires hidden and protecting your sockets is the smartest way to prevent accidental fires caused by reckless employees.
With these three tips up your sleeve, it will be very hard for office fires to start, or for them to spread. Even if one does happen to spark up, you are well-equipped to stop it from spreading and causing even more harm to your property. Remember, fire safety is essential when you’re thinking about the overall health & safety of your business – don’t forget it!
