Impacts of Commercial Property Fire

10/5/2020 (Permalink)

Fire can have a severe impact on your commercial business

Fire damage is a common and dangerous disaster regardless of whether it is a commercial or residential property. Considering all the elements, fire in a commercial property like an office space can have a bigger impact than most, especially when taking into account the lives and careers of the employees in addition to the trading, which often comes to a standstill.

There are several critical impacts of fire on commercial property, which, if foreseen, can make a big difference when it comes to the smooth and productive functioning of your business.

Business incapacitation

The most observed effect of fire to a business is the damage and destruction of the property itself. As most businesses are self-contained, the business as usual, or the operational procedures ceases. This drains the potential of the business to be productive and reliable.

Moreover, the downtime is always exponential to the revenue loss. For every day, the business remains offline, the average revenue takes a fall, which in turn starts affecting the employees and other stakeholders. Any business that suffers such loss might take weeks or months to recover.

Data loss

Most large businesses have a centralized data storage structure to store all their data. However, small or medium businesses are usually vulnerable to data loss, when considering a potential fire threat. The data loss might be in the form of both digitally stored data and physical file formats.

Even a minor data loss like a small portion of a big project, it will still require the concerned stakeholders to perform research, spent time, and carry out several collaborations to put all the pieces back in place.

Loss of inventory

Depending on the type and size of the business, they might house some onsite inventory goods or products. A fire can inflict mass damage and destruction to these goods. These goods or products might be in the form of something that needs to be delivered or used within the business. Even though you have insurance coverage, you might end up paying an additional amount for replacing these products.

Impact on staff

The effect of office fires on employees is often overlooked when considering how devastating it can be for the business physical structure, products, and overall revenue. Employees risk lost wages and involuntary unpaid leaves.

Suffering any injury during a fire makes things further complicated and worse for them as they have to deal with some away time and hefty medical bills.

Furthermore, the severity of fir damage impact can force the business to make some drastic changes to the business structure after a considerable amount of time like making people redundant. This is usually done when the business finds it difficult to make up for the loss suffered due to fire.

Once affected by a fire, opening the doors and restoring the business as usual procedures are the priority of any business. This is where a SERVPRO of Streamwood, Bartlett, West Chicago, & Warrenville with some additional services like insurance documentation assistance can play a crucial role.