YOUR COMMUNITY MUST INVEST IN FIRE PREVENTION

Prevention
Saves Businesses and Community

Fire Costs Everyone In Your Community

Demonstrate the Cost of Blight

Help leaders in your community understand how burnt out buildings often stand for weeks or even months before being demolished or restored. The sight of an abandoned building can depress property values and degrade the quality of life for the surrounding community. They can become dangerous as children are tempted to explore them and as centers for criminal activity or illegal trespass.

Show how often times, businesses that suffer significant fires never reopen. This results in lost jobs. It reduces local tax revenue and can impact the community's ability to attract tourism and industry. The company no longer has a need for local goods, services and products; and unemployed workers curtail their local spending and increase reliance upon social services. These are typical results and they remind us that fire's impact has a long reach throughout the community.

The Environmental Cost of Fire

New studies are starting to show that structural fires release vast quantities of toxins into the environment. Besides carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2), a controlled burn study* found greenhouse gasses, metals, air toxics and semi-volatile organic air toxics all released into the air.

Fire department suppression requires the use of tremendous quantities of water under high pressure. In addition to water usage, the runoff can be damaging to the environment. Fires also generate large volumes of solid wastes that have to be disposed of in landfills.

Prevention efforts can dramatically reduce the impact of fire on our environment by reducing pollution, saving water, and limiting the waste that enters landfills. As one example, according to the 2010 report, Environmental Impact of Automatic Fire Sprinklers, published by FM Global as part of its joint research effort with the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, greenhouse gases can be reduced by 98% when fire sprinklers are installed.

"The methodology shows that in all occupancies, from residential dwellings, to office buildings, to high hazard facilities, the lack of proper risk management and effective fire protection, e.g., automatic fire sprinklers, statistically increases carbon emissions over the lifecycle of the occupancy."
- FM Global

*http://www.fmglobal.com/page.aspx?id=04010300