Fire and Life Safety for Retail Stores

Giving customers a positive experience is key to driving their loyalty and attracting new customers to your business. Beyond the transactional and personal experience associated with engaging with your business, there’s another layer to taking good care of your customers and employees — safety.

Fire and life safety systems protect everyone on your business premises. Although these tools and processes are typically out of both sight and mind for your customers, they are critical to keep everyone safe in your store.

Prioritize these four fire safety strategies for your company’s brick-and-mortar stores.

 
 

Conduct regular risk assessments

Four of the most common Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations in the retail industry relate to fire safety:

  • Exit route maintenance of operational features (e.g., lighting or battery backups)

  • Electrical requirements

  • Hazard communication (e.g., an out-of-date evacuation plan or no plan posted for employees)

  • Material handling, including storage of hazardous materials

Mitigating the risk of an OSHA fire safety violation can feel like a moving target. Retail organizations seeking to reduce their fire risk must conduct regular on-site risk assessments. Store locations may differ in layout as well as staff education level regarding fire and life safety issues. In the same way you would conduct an OSHA pre-assessment for workplace injury, your store security teams should regularly assess fire prevention within the real-life context of the store location. Risk assessments should encompass:

  • Evacuation planning

  • Fire safety equipment location and functionality

  • Employee knowledge of fire safety protocols

  • Building exit access and awareness

  • Electrical hazards assessment

  • Location of hazardous stock, including stored cleaning chemicals

  • Routine equipment maintenance

Risk assessments ensure the right equipment, training, and policies and procedures are in place. To be truly effective, employees must be regularly trained in the protocols to keep everyone safe from inadvertent fire hazards — and be trained in how to respond should an unthinkable crisis occur.

 
 

Fire safety training

Retail has notoriously high employee turnover, which lends itself to potential educational inconsistencies in the areas of fire and life safety. Understanding some of the most common culprits for fire risk is critical for the safety of your employees and business. For example, the following areas may be prone to fire danger:

  • Lighting

  • Wiring and outlets

  • Gas transit lines

  • Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems

  • Chemicals or other flammables

  • Kitchen or break room areas

Retail managers should be trained in conducting daily spot-checks of these areas as well as keeping a keen eye on the potential for ongoing OSHA violations. Making prevention a part of the daily routine helps build ongoing awareness for retail leadership, enabling them to better inform and support employees. Watching for overflowing trash, blocked emergency exits, or hazardous chemicals stored near paper products should be common practice for your management team. Each manager should be tasked with ongoing training for their employees. Leaders at the store level must make an effort to remind employees of the potential hazards of their everyday activities to keep safety top of mind.

 
 

Regular inspection and testing of fire safety systems

In most U.S. states, the regular inspection and testing of fire safety systems is required by law. This includes:

  • Fire alarms that alert employees and customers of the presence of smoke and flames

  • Sprinklers that can mitigate damage to inventory

  • Extinguishers to quickly eliminate small problems before they escalate

In addition to performing regularly scheduled maintenance of these systems, each day your employees should check them for obstructions, such as boxes stored too close to sprinkler heads. A visual inspection of fire doors should be performed daily, and employees should be trained in the location and proper use of fire extinguishers.

Following the above tips for fire safety risk prevention can help your team protect customers, employees, and property. TRL Systems is here to help you mitigate the risk of a fire safety issue in your retail location. We regularly design, install, integrate, and maintain fire and life safety infrastructures. You can reach us at fire@TRLsystems.com or 1-800-266-1392.

Peter Javryd