Best Security Products blog

In a report released by the Nation Fire Protection Association Fire Analysis and Research Division, office fire statistics are analyzed and made public.

Here are a few highlights from the report. Read the entire analysis here.

The report gives information about structure fires in office properties which include business offices, banks, veterinary or research offices, engineering, mailing firms and post offices.

Peak times of day for fires were between noon and 2:00 PM. There were fewer fires on the weekends, since fewer people work on the weekends, but in spite of the lower number of weekend fires accounted for 31% of associated property loss.

The high rate of loss that occurred when the offices were less populated show how important it is to have automatic systems that can not only detect but also extinguish fires when no one is present.

• Greater than one in every four of the fires (29%) was a cooking equipment fire
• Intentionally set fires caused the biggest share of property damage
• Electrical and light equipment fires caused the second most office fires
• 22% of the fires started in the kitchen or cooking area
• 2% of the fires of the fires began in the attic or ceiling area, but these fires caused 13% of the property damage.

Wet pipe sprinklers were very effective in controlling fires and saving lives. When the fires were large enough to trigger the sprinkler system, they operated 90% of the time and were effective in 88% of the fires.

Compared to offices without automatic extinguishing equipment, deaths per 1,000 fires were 62% lower in those that had wet pipe sprinklers.

Is your office adequately protected from fire? If you are not sure, it is time to call a professional for help. Best Security Products specializes in business and commercial fire security systems.

At Best Security Products, we specialize in fire systems for business and home. One important component of your fire security system is a heat detector.

There are two main types of heat detectors available:

1. Fixed Temperature. This type of heat detector works by monitoring the ambient temperature in the room. When the temperature reaches a predetermined level, the detector will activate and sound an alarm.

When a fixed temperature heat detector is activated, it cannot be reused. Activation destroys the device. This is the most common type of heat detector.

2. Rate of rise. This kind of heat detector is designed to activate when the ambient temperature in the room rises at a particular rate, which is programmed when the device is manufactured. This type of heat detector may not activate in a fire that is slow to build and spread.

For a demonstration of how a fixed temperature heat detector works, click the video below by New Age Server Alarm. A head detector is dismantled to show exactly what happens when the temperature reaches the predetermined level. 

It is important to keep in mind that heat detectors are not meant to replace smoke detectors in bedrooms or hallways outside of bedrooms. Heat detectors are better used in areas that are less than ideal for smoke detectors, such as the kitchen. However, when choosing a heat detector, consider the normal activities that will be going on in the area you want to protect.

If your business operates out of a garage where you use equipment that causes the temperature to elevate quickly during use, you may want to use a rate-of-rise heat detector to avoid false alarms from a fixed temperature detector.

Fire safety is our specialty at Best Security Products. Give us a call at 1-800–988–2378 or email us at sales@bestsecurityproducts.com for customized fire security in your business or home.

As a business owner, you no doubt are aware that billions of dollars are lost each year to theft. One of your best defenses against theft is having a high quality business alarm system installed, maintained and monitored by a professional security company. And there is one aspect of this type of system that is particularly important: night vision video cameras.

It is a well-known fact that burglars prefer to do their work under the cover of darkness, since this lessens the odds that they will be caught. This is one of the reasons why security lighting is such an important part of your overall security plan: when the area around your business (parking lot, doors and windows) is brightly lit, a burglar will not see your business as an attractive opportunity. Likewise, keeping the inside of your business brightly lit at night is also a smart strategy for repelling burglars, since passers-by can easily see what is happening inside your business and could see the burglar.

However, even with security lights in place, there may still be dimly lit areas around the interior and exterior of your building. Regular video surveillance cameras will not be effective in dim areas; the images and recording will be low quality and of little use in identifying and apprehending the criminal.

Night vision cameras from Honeywell are the right choice for protecting your business at night. Click here for an informational brochure about Honeywell Night Vision Security cameras, but here is a short excerpt explaining the infrared light that makes these cameras the right choice for superior burglar protection:

Infrared light is a light that the human eye cannot see, but the monochrome CCTV camera can. Near infrared light is light of a longer wavelength than the visible spectrum, between 700 and 1,100 nm, just beyond the visible spectrum. It is this near infrared light that is used for CCTV purposes.

As infrared light contains none of the colors visible to humans it cannot be used with color cameras. To see infrared light, monochrome or day/night cameras are needed. CCTV cameras using infrared light always provide monochrome images.

Applications that require covert surveillance, or applications where even low levels of overt lighting must be avoided for reasons of light pollution, are ideal for infrared light.

At Best Security Products, we can install Honeywell night vision cameras to protect your business. Give us a call or email us at 1-800–988–2378 sales@bestsecurityproducts.com

Source: http://www.honeywellvideo.com/documents/NightVisionSecurity.pdf