What Are Your Fire Safety Goals?

A popular answer to this question is “meeting code”. After all, who wants to be fire-unsafe and violate codes, right? Imagine, for a moment, living in a society where no fire codes and regulations exist. You would have to set your own standards for what level of fire risk you are willing to accept and how to achieve it. Living in a developed nation that places much emphasis on fire safety and where fire safety goals are largely set by governments, we typically defer the task of keeping us safe from fire in our built environments to our codes and code enforcers. If this system of codes and their enforcement were perfect, “meeting code” could be a good fire risk management strategy.

Our fire codes comprise an overwhelming amount of experience, analysis and tried-and-true methods compiled by some of the most knowledgeable people in the fire safety industry. However, codes cannot anticipate every situation and are primarily concerned about the safety of the public and emergency responders. While “meeting code” may be an adequate fire risk goal for some facilities, such as average office buildings, motels and schools, codes do not and cannot adequately address fire safety at the wide gamut of large commercial and industrial facilities. Therefore, owners and operators of these types of facilities need to look beyond “meeting code”.

Fire Risk Mitigation Costs Money

Valuing fire safety and paying for fire safety are not necessarily the same. Almost all facilities are prone to some degree of fire loss. If we knew for sure that a fire was going to happen at a particular point in time, we would spare no expense in anticipation making sure that the impact is minimized. Conversely, if we knew for sure that no fire would happen in the facility's lifetime, spending money on expensive fire risk mitigation would be futile. Alas, we cannot predict the point in time when a fire happens. We only know that given enough time, fire hazards will eventually result in a fire. This makes fire safety risk-based. In other words, fire risk is a gamble. In my experience, managers at facilities that have previously experienced fires are more inclined to spend money on fire risk mitigation than managers at facilities (yet) unscathed from fire.

The lower the risk tolerance, the costlier the engineered solutions. Consider the following example for a building with a typical combustible occupancy.

In the four cases above, fire risk is mitigated incrementally at higher cost with the goal of lower consequences through subsequently-higher investments in engineered fire protection systems.

What is Your Fire Risk Tolerance?

Most rational and logical people avoid casinos and the lottery because they know that the overall gain (or risk) is in favor of the gambling/lottery institution and against us. Fire risk is also against us but we generally don’t have the option of avoidance. Like any risk, fire risk is driven by likelihood and consequence. According to a long-standing insurance axiom, 20% of claims account for 80% of paid claims dollars. In other words, fires are relatively infrequent, but when they happen, their consequences are usually severe.

Risk tolerance also depends on the affected party’s perspective. For example, an underwriter insuring a facility with a $5-million deductible can have a different risk tolerance than the owner of that facility. Both want to avoid a fire that causes a $10-million-dollar loss. However, the underwriter may find a loss under the deductible acceptable, whereas a fire that causes $5-million in damages is likely unacceptable to the owner. Therefore, the underwriter has a higher risk tolerance toward some fire losses than the owner. Another example is a manufacturing company with only one production facility with a single production line. The owner of that facility likely has a lower risk tolerance than the owner of a company with multiple production facilities and production lines. Risk tolerance is not a one-size fits all and is neither good nor bad. Rather, it is individual and circumstantial. The most difficult part is understanding one’s risk tolerance and setting realistic expectations.

The Bottom Line

Risk and risk mitigation both have costs. The answer to the question in the title of this article depends on your risk tolerance and what you are willing to pay for risk mitigation. While fire protection engineers can help you reduce the likelihood or consequence, or both, we cannot establish your fire safety goals for you. If you are not sure about your risk tolerance and what risk mitigation is worth to you, a good initial target is the point where the mitigation cost approaches the risk cost which is also the point of diminishing return. You can then fine-tune your goals from there. See my article The Risky Business of Fire Protection for methods of analyzing risk and finding the point of diminishing returns.

The views expressed in this article are those of its author and in no way represent the positions and views of past, present and future employers, clients or affiliates. Any recommendations or conclusions in this article should not be interpreted as any guarantee that the reader will achieve the same results.