Prevent Fire Risks With These Work Smoking Area Tips

A lot of businesses think carefully about how to prevent the risks of fires inside their buildings, such as keeping flammable substances apart, keeping the office tidy and carrying out regular fire safety risk assessments. One area that is often overlooked when considering workplace fires is from threats that may begin outside of the building, such as people who smoke.

Employees who smoke will be carrying open flames with them and open flames are one of the biggest causes of fires breaking out. So here are some tips on how to make sure your smoking area is safe from the risk of fire.

Create Designated Smoking Areas

The best way to prevent smokers from causing fire hazards is to give them a dedicated area to smoke in. This way you can control where the smokers are, ensuring their cigarettes are not discarded near any other fire risks.

At this smoking area, there should be places to safely dispose of ash and cigarette remains. These should be bins that are specifically designed for smoking debris, and not a standard bin. If you throw a cigarette into a normal bin, there is a chance embers could cause the debris inside the bin to go up in flames. Your smoking area should be covered, ideally above and on some of the sides. This will prevent smokers from getting wet and exposed to the elements. Without this protection, some people might decide to smoke in non-designated areas to try and keep away from the outside, leading to fire risks.

Use Signage

Make sure your smoking area has clear signage so that people know this is where to go to smoke. Large signs and directions should be used to point smokers into the direction of the area. Use no smoking signs around the inside and outside of your building to ensure people do not smoke anywhere.

Fire Protection Services Plymouth

If you’re in need of fire training or fire risk assessments for your office, get in touch with Ace Fire Security today. We can perform a risk assessment which will inform you of any potential fire risks to your building, so you can take the necessary steps to reduce them and make your building as safe as possible.

We also offer training to help staff know exactly what they need to do to prevent fires and how to react if a fire breaks out. In our basic fire awareness training, your staff will learn how to test fire alarms, check equipment and the best way to evacuate staff. If you wish to appoint a dedicated staff member to help you carry out fire safety, we also offer fire warden training, which will teach them how to conduct checks and tests, liaise with the fire brigade and how to quickly evacuate staff safely.

If you’d like to find out more about our services, call today on 01752 482 500. We are based in Plymouth but proudly serve clients across the South West, so get in touch today for your fire and security needs.