Your Fire Safety System Could Be Falling Short
Are your fire detection, notification and response systems up to scratch? A commercial fire protection system needs regular inspections, maintenance and testing to make sure it can keep your occupants safe in an emergency.
If you haven’t kept up with a regular maintenance schedule, catch up now to avoid the potential legal nightmare that could result if you have a fire and your system doesn’t function the way it should.
“One of the first things your property insurance carrier is going to ask for after a fire is a copy of your inspection, testing and maintenance requirements, and if it turns out you haven’t been maintaining them in the way they’re intended, they could use that as justification for denying a claim,” explains Rob Neale, principal of Integra Code Consultants. “If there’s a tort involved – maybe someone got hurt or was killed and there was a proximate cause related to the fire detection system – there could be legal ramifications.
“If you have a hotel fire, for example, and someone is hurt or killed and the family discovers that you haven’t had the fire alarm system inspected or tested in four or five years, they’re definitely going to go after you for that on a civil matter.”
(Pictured: The fire door at this hotel has had the closer removed. It’s more convenient because the door won’t automatically close every time someone opens it, but it also can’t slow the spread of a fire. Photo: Integra Code Consultants.)
