14 WESTERN PALLET
Fire Safety Webinar Offers Path to Best Practices
From the safety of employees to the prevention of fire events, an understanding of fire codes is a critical part of the pallet business. As an industry, we have worked to develop fire code requirements and storage guidelines that are specific to pallet facilities. In a recent WPA webinar, Brint Walker from Coastal States Insurance and Dr. Brad Gething, VP of Science and Technology at the National Wooden Pallet and Container Association discussed considerations for pallet plant fire prevention, safety, and security.
Dr. Gething began by providing background on the NWPCA Fire Code Compliance Manual for Outdoor Storage of Wood Pallets. (To download the manual in English or Spanish, follow this link.) The NWPCA compliance manual provides the necessary information facilities needed to achieve compliance with the revised requirements. The document also includes templates and checklists that facilities can use to facilitate drafting the required plans and maintaining the needed documentation. In addition, the sound operating procedures will benefit any facility by helping them manage its fire risk.
There are four components to fire prevention: a site plan, a fire prevention plan, a fire emergency response plan,
and a security plan. A site plan, for example, primarily delineates such things as lot lines and the location of where any hazardous materials may be stored, fire alarms, and designated smoking areas. A fire prevention plan should include a walk-through inspection, safeguards for “hot works” processes, regular preventive maintenance, and outdoor storage requirements.
Your site plan helps firefighters understand how to enter and navigate your facility as well as the locations of various things they need to consider. “They (the firefighters) love the site plan because it is something that helps them be so much safer in the event of a fire,” he said.
The manual includes examples, outlines, and checklists that can be easily modified to meet pallet company needs. He emphasized that the bulk of what you need to know is found in only eight pages, so the task is not daunting.