Low Hanging Fruit

I have been in the insurance risk control field for 40 years. I have learned that I should never throw a tie away, they will eventually come back into style. I have also learned that low hanging fruit is the steady diet of the inspection driven risk control process. I spent 20 years in the fire service. I served as a fire marshal, a company officer, an EMT and as a chief officer. I learned that fire departments walk past the low hanging fruit every day.

What are the low hanging fruits. They are the fire prevention issues that can be assessed visually. They do not require extensive training in codes, standards and fire protection engineering. Yet they are the root cause of many large fire losses.

Sprinkler Valves: By code sprinkler control valves are indicating valves. You can visually confirm they are open or closed. My first insurance company required that we verify that sprinkler control valves were open at every risk we inspected that was sprinklered. The codes also call for vales to be supervised. This can be using electronic tamper switches or locks or seals with a routine inspection program. As a belt and suspender guy, I always wanted tamper switches and locks. This past week I was at a local baseball stadium. Every HVAC condenser along the main walkway had its power supply locked open to keep the offices and locker rooms cool. Every post indicator valve I passed was neither locked, sealed or equipped with a tamper switch. Over 30% of sprinkler failures are related to closed valves. The local fire department, the insurance company, and the insurance agency on this risk missed the low hanging fruit.

Fire Protection System Inspections: One of the most common recommendations from insurance companies deal with inspection, testing and maintenance (ITM). Many buildings lose their sprinkler credits due to lack of testing. I continually find sprinkler systems, restaurant suppression systems, fire alarm systems and other special hazard systems that have out of date inspection tags. All you need to know are the minimum ITM frequencies to judge this feature of fire protection. Yet it remains one of the most frequently submitted recommendations from insurers. Local fire departments do not seem to take the effort to review these when doing their inspections. Again low hanging fruit is left behind.

Restaurant hood cleaning: This is a visual item. Look at the hood, the grease extraction devices and the areas around the cooking equipment. If you see grease accumulations, it needs to be cleaned. Most hood systems should be cleaned at least twice a year. High use kitchens should be on a quarterly cleaning schedule. Hood cleaning companies leave behind a sticker to show when it was done and when it is due. Every insurance company I worked for had focused inspection programs for restaurants and made this recommendation too many times to count. This is not a technical issue, it is one of observation. Low hanging fruit that left alone results is hood fires.

UL 300: The UL 300 standard was initially published in 1994. In the past 31 years people have been walking past dry chemical fire suppression systems over deep fat fryers and ignoring the issue. This is not a complex technical issue. The system either has or does not have a UL listing mark for UL 300. I am mystified that this is still a source of recommendation activity.

All of the above are directly related to causes of large loss events. None of these require a fire protection engineer to review. For insurance carriers, open your eyes and look around. For fire departments remember that you are the ones at risk when the place is on fire. This is enlightened self- interest by both groups. Firefighters want to survive and insurers want to make money.