It’s important to have all the right protocols in place for your business or home when it comes to fire safety. You’ll need all the right equipment and the right know how to prevent fires. However, all that won’t work if you don’t know how to evacuate in the event of a fire.
Here’s how to conduct fire drills, and how important they are to fire safety.
How to Run Fire Drills
No matter where you are, you need to be able to run an efficient fire drill. Before you do so, ensure you communicate to everyone in the building that a fire drill will be happening, so they are fully prepared.
The best way to start is to set off your fire alarm, to let everyone know that they need to evacuate. Using your fire marshals, guide everybody out of the building through the nearest exit and to the evacuation point. During this process, observe to see what happens. Are there any issues that need to be addressed?
Why Conduct Regular Fire Drills
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Test Your Equipment
The first reason you should be conducting regular fire drills is because you’ll need to test that your equipment is working. Now, of course, you won’t be setting off fire extinguishers or sprinkler systems. However, you do need to know that your fire alarm will go off when tested, and alert everyone in the building to fire.
This is especially important in your home. When you set up your system, you’ll need smoke detectors that will ensure that everyone is alerted when a fire breaks out. These need to be installed both upstairs and downstairs, and especially in every sleeping space. When you test them, you want to know that they will wake everyone up so they can get out.
This is something that a fire prevention service can help you with. They’ll help you install the equipment in the first place, and develop the best way to test it. If you run a fire drill and something doesn’t work as it should, then you can get help to have it repaired as soon as possible.
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Ensure That Your Evacuation Plan Works
Before you ever run a fire drill, you’ll need to create a fire escape plan. This should outline where all the exits are, how you’ll get out, and where you’ll meet up again. As much as you try and memorize this, you won’t know if it works unless you go ahead and do a fire drill.
When you do this, you’ll be able to gather important data. Does everyone know what they should do? Can they get to the exits easily? Do they know where to meet up?
Once you’ve seen people do this, you can assess whether anything about the plan needs to be changed. It’s important to do this regularly, especially in a business where people will come and go over time. If you find the plan no longer works as it should, it’s time to change it up.
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Let Everyone Know Their Roles
In the event of a fire, everyone needs to know what their roles are. This will be slightly different, depending on whether you’re running a fire drill in a business or your home.
In a business, you’ll have certain people assigned as fire marshals. They will help guide people out of the building, and ensure that everyone has made their way out. In your home, you may need to assign roles like opening windows or climbing out of the house, depending on where you are.
When you run your fire drill, this will show you if everyone properly understands their roles. If they don’t, now is the time to properly reassess them, and perhaps change roles around if needs be. Plus, in a business you may have new fire marshals if they have just started with the company. Running the drill ensures that they will know what to do, in case of a real emergency.
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Help People Feel Calmer and More Secure
For many people, there’s nothing more frightening than hearing the fire alarm go off. It’s a frightening situation, and there is potential for things to go wrong here. You want to ensure that everyone is calm during a fire drill or alarm, so they can get out safely.
This is especially true if you have any children at home. If you have young kids, the idea of a fire can be distressing to them. Use a fire drill to show them there’s nothing to be afraid of, if they follow the plan. When you’re doing repeat drills, they’ll soon understand what’s needed of them and be able to get out safely and calmly.
It’s the same when it comes to your business. It’s so easy to forget what you need to do when you don’t do a drill for a while. If you do repeated fire drills, then it helps everyone remember what they need to remember. It’s much better to have some mistakes during a drill, rather than during a real fire.
Also, it’s important to know what to do if there’s a wildfire in your area. Homes and businesses in California right now are at risk, so you want to be sure everyone is calm, and knows what to do should a wildfire encroach on your territory.
Talk to a Fire Prevention Service Today
Whether you’re looking to make your home or your business more secure when it comes to fires, you should talk to a fire prevention service about creating evacuation plans, installing alarms, or running fire drills. They will be able to give you expert advice, and ensure that you have the right equipment installed to prevent fires in your building.
These are just a few reasons why you should run regular fire drills, both at home and at work. Make adjustments where needs be, to ensure that everyone knows what to do. With the help of a good fire prevention team, you should be safe should a real fire ever break out.
