Anticipating Failure of Fire Prevention Measures

If the fire preventive measures fail and fire starts to take hold, the employer needs to have in place effective protective measures that will minimise the risks from the fire. Protective measures for the event of fire are essential irrespective of the standard of fire prevention measures. Protective measures can include means for:

• detecting a fire and raising the alarm;
• preventing or slowing down the spread of fire;
• extinguishing the fire;
• evacuation of the workplace to protect people from exposure to fire, smoke, etc.;
• other precautions which may be necessary (such as automatic shut down of certain processes when fire is detected, disabling of certain equipment when automatic sprinklers operate, etc.).