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Fire Protection System Natural Disaster Guide
Protect Your Fire Protection System During a Natural Disaster
Natural disasters and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly intense and more frequent, requiring property managers, business owners, safety managers, and senior staff to create emergency preparedness plans that go well beyond fire safety plans for their fire protection system.
Taking a comprehensive approach emphasizes the need to keep people, property, and inventory safe from every potential danger. However, while some measures are mutually beneficial during a variety of dangers, some measures will be vastly different, depending on the danger at hand.
A comprehensive plan will include fire protection system preparation in the case of:
- A fire event, both large and small-scale fires
- A tornado, that comes in several categories of intensity
- Hurricanes, which also come in a variety of sizes and strengths
- Flooding, both in low-lying areas and flash floods
- Combinations of these disasters
Management personnel must complete a risk assessment to determine which catastrophe is most likely or most likely to create significant damage. A property’s location and elevation must be a major consideration as to the priority of the likelihood of certain disasters.
However, the comprehensive approach will uncover shared steps of preparation, easing the cost and reducing the necessary steps. Fire protection system preparations include protecting people, communicating with all involved, and planning for mitigation and restoration.
Protecting People
Every disaster preparation plan must begin with bringing people—guests, staff, and neighbors—to safety through a variety of potential hazards. However, the plans will need to be adjusted for each type of disaster.
- Any large fire event will require an evacuation plan, complete with routes and meeting places. Evacuation plans need to be designated with signs and communicated to staff.
- Flooding may also require evacuation, but sufficient notification usually precedes flooding to make it a slow, measured evacuation. The evacuation will include leaving the property as well as the buildings.
- Protecting people is just the opposite during tornadoes and hurricanes. People can best be protected by seeking the most secure, inner portion of a facility, away from the wind.
Comprehensive Communication Plan
Fire Protection System Plans on paper are useless unless communicated properly to everyone who needs to hear.
- Fire event communication is focused on staff and guests first, to ensure they have time to vacate the premises to a safe place. These steps will include fire alarms, lights, and sometimes include instructions concerning the location of the fire. The secondary communication task includes notification to emergency responders, both fire and medical personnel.
- Communication plans for tornadoes, hurricanes, and flooding are in the very reverse; weather and emergency preparedness agencies communicate the coming danger to individuals and the general public when these severe weather events approach. With tornado warnings, communication calls for people to move to safety immediately. For hurricanes and flooding, communication often comes several days in advance, so that buildings can be boarded against the wind, and the population can move inland or to higher ground.
- A further step of communication includes sharing response plans with staff and scheduling training drills as needed. After all, the staff will be responsible for moving guests and customers to safety when the need arises.
Mitigation and Restoration Plans
Commercial emergency plans require planning beyond the immediate threat, to continue to make people and property safe during and immediately after a disaster event occurs. This includes:
- Sprinklers, fire extinguishers, and suppression equipment to put out a fire and protect property.
- Basic emergency supplies, such as some water and medical supplies.
- Power generation is often a part of the plan for frequent power outages. The power grid may be out for days or weeks after severe weather.
Each building and business is unique and further steps may be just as unique. These plans may include:
- Moving records to safety
- Protecting electronics of all kinds
- Protecting hazardous materials
- Planning for inspections and assessments to ensure the facility is safe for reentry.
Let Fire Safe Help Create Your Fire Protection System Natural Disaster Guide
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