BSA Highlights The Total Polyfilm Site Fire Case To Focus On How Sprinklers Play A Key Role In Avoiding Catastrophic Fires

Three-and-a-half years on from a destructive fire, which engulfed a plastics manufacturer’s factory with no sprinkler system, in Lancashire, United Kingdom, the lasting effect is undeniable, as the £50 million turn-over business has gone into administration cost cuts, with the loss of 200 jobs.

Total Polyfilm site fire

The fire at the Total Polyfilm site, located in Bamber Bridge, on May 10, 2016, took 60 firefighters to control and resulted in the total loss of the factory. Nearby residents and businesses felt the impact from the smoke and environmental pollution, while roads were closed that lead to traffic disruption. Production was transferred to another site, while the building was rebuilt, but this heavily affected day-to-day business.

The factory was fully operational, a year after the fire, but it took an additional seven months, due to restoration delays, for the relocation to be complete. Despite the 60-year-old polythene business returning to operations, the company never properly recovered. This was further compounded by the loss of key customers and reduced sales, across their key markets of agriculture and industry.

Fire safety key to business resilience

BSA highlights that there needs to be more proactivity and conscious business resilience in decision making

To prevent similar scenarios from occurring, the Business Sprinkler Alliance (BSA) highlights that there needs to be more proactivity and conscious business resilience in decision making when it comes to businesses safeguarding themselves from fire’s devastating effects.

Unless trading can continue quickly and without major disruption, businesses feel the financial pressure of maintaining cash flow and eventually flounder. Fire is indiscriminate and inexplicable in nature, but that doesn’t mean timely action can’t be taken by the establishment to control the fire when it first occurs.

Contrast the total loss of the Total Polyfilm factory, to a fire that happened in February 2016, at a similar plastics manufacturer, BPI. They returned to operations within 24 hours of the fire incident. The difference was that the BPI factory had a sprinkler system installed that contained the fire effectively.

Need for broader use of sprinkler system

A sprinkler system works by only setting off the sprinklers in the immediate vicinity of a fire. A recent study of UK fire statistics showed that 95% of fires are controlled or even extinguished, by the operation of fewer than five sprinklers, debunking the myth that if one sprinkler goes off, then all of them will.

Automatic fire sprinklers are not widely used in the UK, because the guidance rarely prescribes their use

Automatic fire sprinklers are not widely used in the UK, because the guidance rarely prescribes their use. Yet, automatic fire sprinklers prevent large fires, as they activate automatically over a fire, controlling or even extinguishing the blaze before the fire and rescue service arrives.

They, therefore, save lives and protect firefighters, who attend to the fire incidents and also prevent significant damage or destruction of a building by fire.

Sprinklers help prevent major financial loss

It’s often the case that businesses are not valuing what they own, in terms of property and think they are going to recover a lot quicker than they do. They are failing to see the real impact of fire and leaving themselves exposed to the dangers of a major fire incident.

The inclusion of a sprinkler system can prevent major financial and equipment losses, containing what could be a potential major disaster and ensuring that it is only a minor inconvenience. Proven time and again with consistent reliability, an effective sprinkler system is a small price to pay, in order to prevent a business’ hard earned success from going up in flames.