The 1135 waivers for fire drills and fire alarm system testing and maintenance are over. Please make sure you are following all Life Safety K tags, including K-712 and K-345

There are an average of 5,700 fires reported yearly in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. 48% of those reported fires occurred in nursing homes and can be costly in regards to property damage, injuries and death. The leading causes of nursing home fires are cooking, appliances, heating and electrical malfunctions.

Fire protection and fire safety are a focus for nursing homes in relation to compliance. The Life Safety Code (LSC) is a set of fire protection requirements designed to provide reasonable degree of safety from fire. 

October 9-15 is National Fire Prevention Week. Facilities should have a robust program in place to ensure that fire prevention and safety measures are taught and practiced, routine inspection and maintenance of fire protection measures such as sprinklers, alarms, and extinguishers are carried out, and procedures are in place for fire watches or evacuations should a sprinkler system outage occur. 

Always be watchful and ready, and make fire prevention and safety a priority.