Your primary concern ought to be the safety and security of your seniors; it is therefore critical that your facility takes proactive steps to make sure that the right fire safety measures are in place. According to authorities in fire safety, the legally mandated fire safety requirements are not being met by more than 50% of the care establishments in the country.

According to studies, even at retirement communities that have experienced a fire within the previous six years, inspectors frequently fail to notice serious safety issues. Additionally, government inspectors frequently fail to penalize establishments that lack the required alarm and sprinkler systems, allowing them to get away with these transgressions. Without an adequate fire safety policy, your community is at risk of significant damages and legal actions that might put it out of business.

Here is a checklist on what is important in terms of fire safety for your assisted living community in Cornelius, NC.

Putting a Fire Safety Procedure in Place

Implementing a fire suppression system and putting in place a fire prevention strategy are the two most important steps a retirement community can take to develop a good fire safety program. Sprinklers are necessary since many residents are reliant on ventilators, intravenous fluids, and feeding tubes, making it difficult for them to move fast or independently. Even if the equipment is expensive, the added expenditure is justified. Sprinklers put out a fire more rapidly, giving occupants and employees more time to safely leave the building.

A Checklist of Building Precautions

Undertake a survey to look at the building’s structure. Here are some of the important things to note:

Whether the property has a sprinkling system will affect your approach. If there is no sprinkler system, you might want to install one. But until you do, you would need to evacuate quickly and effectively, so your strategy needs to account for that.
To ascertain if the ventilation system will dissipate smoke, examine the heating, ventilators, and air conditioning equipment. Additionally, check to see whether the HVAC includes a fire alarm-related automated shut for the air handling unit.
Determine whether the elevator possesses fire-resistant seals, whether pressurization was employed to keep smoke from infiltrating the elevator shaft, and whether the vertical service shafts have proper sealing by inspecting the elevator.
Check to see if the building has adequate smoke detectors and whether a system for alerting the fire department automatically is in place.
Check to see whether the building has smoke shields that can contain the fire in one place until the fire crew can extinguish it.
Examine the inhabitants’ room doors. Doors with a thickness of 1.75 inches offer twenty minutes of flame protection. Additionally, doors are kept from opening even while under fire pressure thanks to door latches that are mounted outside the door.

Team Training

The institution must undergo in-depth employee training and regular fire drills to ensure that employees are aware of the necessary procedures and can carry them out rapidly. Managers, such as heads of departments ought to regularly hold fire drills for their workforce. By doing this, each department may assess how effectively its personnel is ready to respond to a fire. Each department can then undertake further training in the areas that require improvement.