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Fire Prevention Can Save Your Company

Statistics show that more than half of all privately-owned businesses that experience a major fire go out of business within a year. For your shop to stay safe, take the proper precautions to set up your machines with fire suppression systems.

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According to an article we published, titled “Choosing the Right Fire Suppression System for Your Machines,” statistics show that more than half of all privately-owned businesses that experience a major fire go out of business within a year. For your shop to stay safe, take the proper precautions to set up your machines with fire suppression systems.

Factors that can set off fires in a machine tool include cutting with oil (oil is flammable), cutting certain material that creates small, combustible chips, and performing hard turning (which when cut dry can create sparks). A tool crash or machine overheating can cause flammable oil vapors to erupt into a flash fire that can engulf a machine in seconds.

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The potential for disaster from a machine fire increases when a shop runs lights out or leaves machines unattended. A machine fire that is immediately detected and suppressed may result in little or no damage and only a few hours of unscheduled downtime.

The same fire, left unchecked for even a short period of time, will probably destroy the machine and may spread to the building’s structure where it can threaten lives and property.

Read about “Choosing the Right Fire Suppression System for your Machines” for more information. Also, visit “A Youthful Approach to Production Machining” (scroll to the bottom, under “Protect the Investment”) to read about one shop’s experience with using fire suppression equipment. Another resource is “The Case for Supplementary Fire Suppression.”