As many as 130 little bodies enter your building every day. Some walk in on their own, tightly gripping the hand of their mother or father. Others are carried in asleep in a car seat, barely visible beneath the blankets. Still others are hoisted to the hip of their parent, too big and too heavy for the car seat, but not yet steady enough to make the walk on their own.
No matter how they make their entrance, these 130 little bodies who make their way into your Montessori preschool and daycare center every day are completely dependent on you for their safety. These little ones, as well as their loving and concerned families, rely on you to keep them safe. They rely on you to hire qualified and caring staff to nurture and educate them during the day. The rely on you to make sure that they are fed healthy and nutritious food. They rely on you to make sure that you have a clean and safe facility. From meal choices and feeding times to cleaning schedules and proper fire sprinkler installation, the young ones who come into your center not only need you to follow the child as the Montessori philosophy explains, they also need you to lead the way in keeping them safe.
Are You Doing Everything You Can to Make Sure That Your Employees and Customers Are Safe?
Whether you are owner of a daycare center, a healthcare facility, a workout gym, or an apartment complex, state and federal regulations require a number of fire and safety measures be employed. From proper fire sprinkler installation to conducting fire drills to being connected to an alarm system that connects to local fire authorities, property owners are required to submit documentation that indicates that all requirements have been met.
Every business and not for profit owner who has a facility where employers or customers gather must do everything within their power to make sure that the building is safe and has the required number of commercial fire alarm installations. Consider some of these facts about fire safety and equipment when it comes to warehouses, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, data centers, and other commercial buildings:
- 1,200 is the number of hospital fires that the U.S. fire departments responded to in the year 2010, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
- Only 35% of businesses in a survey of 119 businesses indicated that they had any kind of fire evacuation plan.
- 15 deaths and 150 injuries are caused every year because of hotel and motel fires.
- 19% of non-confined fires in hospitals are caused by electrical malfunction, the leading cause.
- 55% of medical facility fires are labeled as confined cooking fires.
- Quick response sprinklers are defined as a system that releases eight to 24 gallons of water every minute. This number compares to the 80 to 125 gallons a minute discharged by a fire hose, which also reduces the likelihood of water damage.
- Both fire prevention and detection are critical to safeguarding data centers, facilities that hold critical business and organizational information around the world. The total spent on these facilities around the world reached $149 billion this year.
- $76 million in property loss every year is caused by hotel and motel fires.
- 6,240 structure fires in or on health care properties required U.S. fire departments to respond each year between 2006 and 2010.
- Local fire departments must be notified and hospitals must establish a fire watch if a renovation project results in the fire alarm or sprinkler system being disabled for more than a limited number of hours within a 24-hour.
Proper fire sprinkler installation, followed up by required service and maintenance checks, not only help protect your building, supplies, and equipment, they can also protect your largest asset: your employees, your cyour lients, and customers. Have you made sure that you are up to date on the testings of your proper fire sprinkler installation so that you can rest assured that every body, whether he or she enters your place in a car seat or on foot, is as safe as possible? Every single person who comes into your business, healthcare facility, apartment complex, or daycare center deserves the opportunity to safely walk back out.