Keep an eye on the kitchen or breakroom.
Kitchens are notorious for being the top cause of residential fires, but they also contribute to business and commercial fires. Often time people are running around the kitchen of a commercial building or location, and sometimes appliances can be left on or they can move around during the hustle of the day. This can cause the heating source to shift and potentially touch a flammable material and cause a fire. To help avoid this, tell your employees to take a second to make sure the appliance is off and far away from anything that can catch fire.
Don’t overuse your outlets.
Another common cause for commercial fires is electrical fires. Electrical fires can be caused by several different factors including wiring issues. Many times a business owner or an employee will choose to overload electrical outlets with tons of devices like computers, laptops, printers, scanners, cell phone and tablet chargers and more. All these use electricity even when not in use, and all these devices can cause the system to overload. Use surge protectors and use a safe amount of devices for each outlet. To reduce your chances of an electrical fire, you can consult with an electrician to uncover what condition your wiring is in and to see how safe your outlets actually are.
Watch out for the heater.
Depending on where you are you may have portable heaters in your workplace, and sometimes these heating devices can cause a fire if they get hot enough and if they are near any flammable materials. Make sure that portable heaters are placed in a safe location and that they are turned off when they are not in use.
Just in case, always be ready!
In the event a fire occurs in your workplace, make sure to tell your employees where you keep your fire extinguishers. Remember fire extinguishers need to be visible and easy to reach at all times. Don’t obstruct them from view. Always keep your fire extinguishers maintained and in proper working conditions, and make sure to have a sufficient amount of smoke alarms installed in your commercial location so if there’s a fire everyone in the location can be alerted to it in a timely manner. Smoke alarms also require maintenance, some basic maintenance you can do on your smoke alarms is to test them regularly and replace the batteries as soon as they need to be replaced.