Each year, the first week of October is set aside for fire prevention with many activities centered around home fires. But Monday, Lima Rotarians heard about commercial property fires and how to best prevent them.
Fire officials from Lima, Bath, and Shawnee speaking to the group. The number one cause of commercial fires is cooking just as in residential fire causes. They also expressed how important sprinkler systems are in commercial structures as they get water on the fire before fire crews can arrive. Most important is that the business needs to have a fire safety plan in place.
Bath Fire Chief Joseph Kitchen explains, “We want business owners to have a fire safety plan just like people at home. They need to be doing exit drills, they need to be talking to their employees about safe practices and they need to be doing their own fire inspections looking for hazards and looking for violations.”
Kitchen says there are about 100-thousand commercial building fires a year across the nation causing roughly 2.6-billion dollars in damage. To learn more about what is needed for a fire safety plan for your business, you can contact your local fire department.
