Why is fire safety education and training important?

Fire safety education and training is not only required by law, it’s also an extremely important skill to obtain regarding the safety of employees and others who might be in the building. Fires are damaging to property, cause injury or death, and can even eliminate jobs since many buildings destroyed by fire are not rebuilt. The way to prevent these dire outcomes is proper fire safety training.

Taking part in fire safety training will provide workers with skills such as recognizing hazards, being able to complete a fire risk assessment, taking action in preventing fires, and lastly understanding how to respond in the case of an emergency. All of these are indispensable skills and give employees the potential to completely eliminate fire risks in the workplace

Learning about fire hazards is the key to preventing fire from occurring. Teaching a workforce about the combustion triangle is a good place to start. The triangle consists of the necessary ingredients that fires spark from: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent. Once these basics are learned, then hazards are more visible in the workplace since the employees know what to look for.

The next on the list is risk assessment training. This comes right after recognizing fire hazards because employees become responsible for taking action against hazards present already and eliminating or reducing them. Generally, assessments look at the following:

Emergency exits and routes
Active and passive fire protection systems
Safe storage/removal of dangerous substances
Firefighting equipment like extinguishers
Evacuation plan
Clear communication with others about fire hazards
Staff fire safety training
How to help those who are more vulnerable than others

If these assessments are not completed, then the workplace will end up becoming incredibly dangerous over time as more hazards will accumulate due to the fact that no one will know how to address those fire hazards and eliminate them.

Learning how to respond to a fire is a large part of fire safety training and is essential in creating a clear understanding of protocol in emergency situations so employees will be sufficiently prepared to fight the fire or get out safely and efficiently. Fire training courses teach how to use firefighting equipment like fire extinguishers, how to activate the fire alarm, and how to work as a team, as well as learning what one’s own responsibilities are. However, these are only a few subjects that are covered in emergency response training

Overall, participating in fire safety training does wonders to help prevent fires just from the workers being more aware of their surroundings and knowing what can ignite a fire. They can even each contribute by doing simple things such as: