What Is the Difference Between Commercial Fire Protection… | Kaloutas

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What Is the Difference Between Commercial Fire Protection and Prevention?

Fireproofed ceiling in a commercial facility. What Is the Difference Between Commercial Fire Protection and Prevention?

As we’ve dis­cussed count­less times before, fires can have dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences on facil­i­ties and those who occu­py them. Busi­ness own­ers and facil­i­ty man­agers must make every effort pos­si­ble to pro­tect their peo­ple and assets from this pow­er­ful force of nature. These pre­cau­tions come in many forms, how­ev­er, and can be bro­ken down into two sep­a­rate but relat­ed cat­e­gories: fire pre­ven­tion and fire pro­tec­tion. And while these terms are often con­flat­ed, there are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences between com­mer­cial fire pro­tec­tion and pre­ven­tion. Let’s go over these dif­fer­ences so you can pro­vide your facil­i­ty with the nec­es­sary tools and meth­ods to keep your peo­ple and prop­er­ty safe.

Com­mer­cial Fire Pro­tec­tion vs. Com­mer­cial Fire Prevention

What Is Com­mer­cial Fire Protection?

As its name sug­gests, fire pro­tec­tion is aimed at safe­guard­ing mate­ri­als and indi­vid­u­als in the event of a fire. A com­bi­na­tion of equip­ment, pro­ce­dures and sys­tems are used to cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive fire pro­tec­tion plan. Fire pro­tec­tion can be active (AFP) or pas­sive (PFP). Active fire pro­tec­tion con­sists of sys­tems that require a cause or trig­ger in order to func­tion, such as sprin­klers, alarms, extin­guish­ers, and even fire­fight­ers. Pas­sive fire pro­tec­tion, on the oth­er hand, doesn’t require acti­va­tion to do its job – this includes the imple­men­ta­tion of fire stop­ping mate­ri­als, fire­proof­ing, and dampers (these slow the spread of fire and smoke inside ducts). When prop­er­ly deployed, these active and pas­sive fire pro­tec­tion mea­sures mit­i­gate and poten­tial­ly extin­guish fires before they do seri­ous dam­age. At the very least, a prop­er fire pro­tec­tion plan pro­vides plen­ty of time for occu­pants to safe­ly exit the build­ing in the event of a fire.

What About Com­mer­cial Fire Pre­ven­tion?

Fire pre­ven­tion is inter­est­ed in avoid­ing fires alto­geth­er. After all, the say­ing goes that an ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a pound of cure – if you can pre­vent a fire from start­ing in the first place, you’ll save sig­nif­i­cant time and mon­ey, all while ensur­ing the ongo­ing safe­ty of your peo­ple. Prop­er fire pre­ven­tion starts with reg­u­lar facil­i­ty inspec­tions, espe­cial­ly in regard to elec­tri­cal fea­tures and all oth­er sys­tems and sub­stances that pose par­tic­u­lar­ly high risks of igni­tion. Dur­ing such an inspec­tion, the inspec­tor will look for vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties through­out your facil­i­ty and make note of any areas, mate­ri­als, or pieces of equip­ment that require atten­tion. Tak­ing care of these poten­tial haz­ards in a time­ly fash­ion is cru­cial to max­i­miz­ing fire pre­ven­tion. Fire pre­ven­tion also requires ongo­ing, high-qual­i­ty train­ing and edu­ca­tion for all per­son­nel. Human error makes up a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of facil­i­ty fire inci­dents. So, those who reg­u­lar­ly work in haz­ardous envi­ron­ments must be well-versed in prop­er usage, set-up, shut-down, and safe­ty procedures.

Fire Pre­ven­tion and Pro­tec­tion: Why Your Facil­i­ty Needs Both

Fire pro­tec­tion and pre­ven­tion sound sim­i­lar, but their philoso­phies are quite dif­fer­ent. Still, like all the best duos, fire pre­ven­tion, and pro­tec­tion work bet­ter togeth­er than on their own. If your facil­i­ty lacks one or the oth­er, not only will it fall out of com­pli­ance with OSHA and oth­er impor­tant reg­u­la­tions – it will also be miss­ing one-half of the com­mer­cial fire safe­ty equa­tion. It’s best to pre­vent a fire from occur­ring, but if flames ignite, your facil­i­ty must be well-equipped to stand its ground against the fire until it can be prop­er­ly put out.

At Kaloutas, we’re com­mit­ted to the ongo­ing safe­ty of all our clients’ facil­i­ties, which is why we train our teams, edu­cate our cus­tomers, and spe­cial­ize in installing com­pli­ant pre­ven­tion mea­sures (includ­ing fire inspec­tions, cemen­ti­tious and intu­mes­cent fire pro­tec­tive coat­ings, fire­proof patch­ing, etc.). To learn more about us and all that we do, con­tact us online or give us a call at 9785321414 today.

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