Is firefighting equipment on your cleaning schedule?

This is one of the most obvious pieces of equipment that all food business have but is rarely found to be clean or included on the cleaning schedule. This week’s Food Safety HACCP Challenge is to go and inspect the cleanliness of your firefighting equipment. This includes fire extinguishers, fire hoses and fire blankets.

As a food safety auditor, I often find firefighting equipment to be covered in dirt and dust or covered in food ingredient residues. I have also found fire blankets to be a harbourage for pests, especially cockroaches. Pests love these areas because they are rarely disturbed, giving them a secure place to set up house.

How to complete this challenge

There are a few things that you need to do as part of this challenge.

1.  Go and check each and every piece of firefighting equipment for both cleanliness and pest activity. I always like to take photos to show staff the before and after. Photos are also a great training tool to show what ‘good’ or ‘correct’ looks like.

2. Map out the location of each piece of your firefighting equipment. Depending on your regulatory or OHS requirements around fire protection, you may have already done this.

HACCP-Mentor-Firefighting-Equipment

 

3. Check to see if you have documented each piece of equipment within your cleaning schedule. Don’t forget to include the type of firefighting equipment, the location, the method of how the firefighting equipment will be cleaned, the frequency of cleaning and who is responsible for cleaning it.

4. Finally, cross check with the people responsible for cleaning these items. Ensure they know when and how firefighting equipment should be cleaned.

How did you do?

Let me know how you went with this week’s #FSHChallenge. Did you pass with flying colours or did you need to do a bit of work to come up to standard? Share with everyone by leaving a comment below this post.

4 thoughts on “Is firefighting equipment on your cleaning schedule?”

  1. Thanks a lot i did not know that a fire extinguisher should also have cleaning check list … i normally do visual checks and ask a cleaning lady to include it when she’s cleaning..

    1. Thanks Babalwa. Anything that has the potential to attract dirt and dust should be kept clean in the food production environment.

  2. One area that is always neglected is waste storage area and waste bins holding food waste awaiting uplift My company has just been asked to start cleaning food waste bins that have never been cleaned in over 3 years for a major food training college in a very large City the tutors did not know it was part of HACCP until we contacted them several times informing them.

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