Fire Suppression in Assisted Living: What You Need to Know
Jun 18, 2025
Starting an assisted living facility? One of the most important safety measures you’ll need to take care of is fire suppression. Whether you’re dealing with small fires or larger emergencies, having the right fire safety systems in place is crucial. Let's break it down. π₯
Check out this video, too;
Why Fire Suppression is Crucial for Your Facility
Safety is always the top priority in assisted living. You’re not only responsible for your residents' health and well-being but also their safety from potential disasters like fires. That's what fire suppression systems are for.
Ask yourself:
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Have I considered the right fire suppression system for my facility?
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Am I complying with the Life Safety Code and local regulations?
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Do my systems support the independence of my residents while keeping them safe?
Getting clear on fire suppression systems will keep your facility and residents safe while ensuring you meet safety codes. If you're unsure, the Success System program can help guide you through every step of setting up the right system.
Step 1: Understand the Two Main Types of Fire Suppression Systems
When it comes to fire suppression, there are two main types of systems you’ll need to consider for your assisted living home:
π Fire Extinguishers:
These are crucial for controlling small fires and should be strategically placed throughout the facility—especially in kitchens, hallways, and utility rooms. You'll need fire extinguishers even if you have a fire suppression system.
π Sprinkler Systems:
These systems can be more complex. There are two types to know about:
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NFPA 13: A full sprinkler system that covers all areas, including bedrooms, kitchens, and hallways.
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NFPA 13R: A less invasive system, primarily for residential spaces, focusing on life safety rather than total building protection.
π‘ Need help figuring out which system suits your facility? Check with local fire authorities or ask a fire safety expert!
Step 2: Know the Life Safety Code Requirements
The Life Safety Code is the guide to help you know what fire protection you need in your assisted living home. It dictates which systems you need based on your facility’s classification—whether you have residents who are more independent or residents who need a lot of assistance.
π Facilities with Independent Residents:
For facilities with independent residents who can evacuate easily (on their own), you'll typically need an NFPA 13R system along with strategically placed fire extinguishers.
πFacilities with Residents Who Need Assistance:
For facilities where residents need assistance to evacuate, you need a NFPA 13 system that covers the entire building, including every room.
π‘ Get clear on your facility’s classification and work with the local fire department to make sure you meet the code requirements. It’s essential for resident safety and facility compliance!
Step 3: Who Is Responsible for Fire Safety in Your Facility?
As the owner, you are responsible for ensuring your fire suppression systems are set up and maintained correctly. Here’s what you need to do:
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Install the Right System:
Depending on your facility type (which type of resident you serve), make sure you have the correct fire suppression systems in place.
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Maintain Your Systems:
Schedule regular inspections and maintenance of your fire extinguishers and sprinklers to ensure they’re always in working order. You'll also need to keep track of these maintenance records as the state will want to see them during annual surveys.
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Stay Compliant:
Work closely with local fire marshals and inspectors to make sure your facility complies with fire safety codes.
Step 4: Take Action and Protect Your Facility
Now that you know the basics, it’s time to take action and set up your fire suppression systems.
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Determine your facility’s classification:
Which type of resident will your facility serve? This helps determine which fire suppression system you need. -
Contact a professional:
Work with the local fire department and fire experts in your area to install the correct system. It’s worth the investment for your residents’ safety! -
Schedule regular inspections:
Regular maintenance and inspections will keep your fire suppression systems in top shape, reducing risks. -
Stay proactive:
Don’t wait for an issue to arise. Make fire safety a priority today!
π‘ Need more help? Download our Business Plan Checklist to guide you through the next steps.
Next Steps: Take Action Today!
π Ready to ensure your facility is safe from fire risks?
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Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning.
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Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
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Step 3: Follow this guide, take action, and bring your vision to life!
Got questions? Drop them in the comments below! β¬οΈ
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:00
so one second all right so in our topic today we're going to be discussing fire suppression in your assisted living home this is a question that I got from somebody in the Facebook group uh crand uh hopefully I said your name right uh so uh this was a question she wanted to get into Life Safety Code we're going to talk about that today uh what it is and how it impacts you with your Assisted Living business so I just wanted to get into that before we jump in though let's remind you to get over to the website
00:00:30
Assisted Living investing. net if you get over to assisted Liv investing. netb checklist you can get the free underwriting checklist or not underwriting the free uh business plan checklist that's going to help you get things going we talked about this in our our conversation last week about the Mastermind the base of everything that you need to do to start your Assisted Living business to help you launch that Assisted Living business is building that business plan so this checklist is going to get you off on the right foot
00:00:59
in helping you do that is here at Assisted Living investing I'm here to help you launch your Assisted Living business so excited to help you along that process let's get into the topic of today's video the fire suppression system in your assisted in your assisted living home um specifically around Life Safety Code for those of you that don't know me though let me introduce myself my name is Brandon i h have I have been in the healthcare industry for over a decade I own two uh assisted living facilities
00:01:29
out of state I live in Utah uh one of my facilities is in Colorado and the other one is in Idaho and operate those remotely with some incredible administrators that help us out through that process I've been doing this since 2020 where we bought our first facility in Colorado and the second one in 2021 I've secured over one and a half million in SBA funding as well through some of the deals that I've done uh through the years so I have a lot of experience in this and in understanding it if you're
00:01:55
new here type in newbie I'd love to see if you're you're new or if you are an operator already and wanted to get some clarification on uh fire suppression and what it is Type in operator down below so just know who is here and interacting with me and make sure you type in any questions that you have um we'll have some time here at the end for some Q&A to answer questions that you have um but also uh I'll get to those questions in the comments after the video if you can't make it to the live session so
00:02:23
make sure you are putting that information in there now let's talk about what exactly is fire suppression so fire suppression it it it is extinguishing or controlling or preventing fire at its core that's what it is there are a couple options for you to be able to do this this could be a fire extinguisher as you see there on on the photo um the fire extinguisher is once a fire is there um you can spray it out or there are Sprinklers and sprinklers actually have varying levels of what they are intended to do we're
00:02:55
going to dive into that um there's a level of extinguishing the fire um so that you don't don't have that anymore but preventing um fire um from getting out of control protecting the home protecting residence so we'll talk about that here as we get into it and that is really at its core what the life safety code is so let's uh dive a little bit deeper into this there are requirements for different types of facilities um as I was going through and researching this um the state of Utah actually has a
00:03:23
really clear view of doing this but I found a few other spots that kind of um collabor collaborate with that and helping you identify what the difference is between a condition one and a condition two facility um and the different requirements that you need to meet with the Life Safety Code and fire suppression systems so a condition one facility are residents who do not need any assistance evacuating the building in the event of an emergency of a fire or something like that they're mobile enough that they can get out of the
00:03:55
house by themselves and you don't have to worry about that so in condition one facility you are required to follow the NFPA 13r system and basically this is a less invasive system and um you also would need to have fire extinguishers so you're going to have to have a level of fire suppression in the home but if your residents are mobile enough and able to exit a building by themselves then um you don't have to do the full um as invasive of a fire suppression system those look different there you could
00:04:31
probably reach out to uh like a fire marshal or even if you just get on and do an internet search for something around like fire safety um in my area or something like that you're going to find a handful of companies that do this they they actually have a lot of really incredible information I spent a lot of time do deep into this um the other night and I was just impressed with how much information is out there to help you understand exactly what that looks like and how it can help you along but a
00:04:59
condition one facility is 13r system and fire extinguishers is what you're going to need if you're in a condition to facility these are for residents who need assistance evacuating a building this potentially could be they're in a wheelchair or um you know maybe they're somebody that is bedbound or something like that these are residents that they cannot leave the premise on on their own this would not be you know every single resident is like that but if you have one or more residents that fall under
00:05:29
that criteria where they would need assistance getting out of the home then you are considered a Class 2 facility this is also for facilities that have more than 16 residents in them um which automatically bumps you into that class two type of a facility so when you're a condition to or a large facility you have to follow the NFPA 13 um and get that type of a system which is more invasive it has uh there's going to be pipes and things that go in you will probably need to rip out um parts of the
00:06:02
ceiling in order to to get this one in place and things like that so it can be expensive it can be invasive can can be a really big project you're also going to need fire extinguishers in some of those areas um the the thing my understand with a 13 system is it also has to go into every single room whereas a 13r system um is more in the the main living spaces I could have misunderstood that but as I was looking through it that's kind of what it looked like so there's just more um that goes into it and that's why
00:06:32
it's more evasive um it's bigger pipes there's actually a difference in and what that looks like and the purpose of those two things so right here this is the Life Safety Code and this was what CA in the Facebook group had has asked about what the life safety code is and really at its core the life safety code is a national standard for keeping residents safe from a fire that's that is the goal of doing this each facility must also meet local fire codes and typically those State Fire codes um as
00:07:06
well so there there's going to be local things your local fire marshal is going to understand exactly what those those rules and regulations are they're going to be able to give you some guidance on what that looks like how to um handle that there's going to be State and I would imagine also Federal Regulations as well as you get into that so we talked about the different classifications a classification or condition condition one facility versus a condition two facility and a 13r versus a 13 system so 13r is all about
00:07:37
life safety it is to protect the resident and make sure that um they don't burn basically uh at its score a 13 system is for Life Safety but also for building protection so it wants to protect the building suppress the fire put the fire out so that there is no further damage to a building that is at its core kind of the difference why a 13 is going into all of the rooms going into all of the spaces in the home and a 13r is more just kind of those main living spaces where where people are that again how I understood it as I read
00:08:11
through those rules um so you want to understand what that looks like and how it's going to impact you you can take this information with you and you could say Okay I want to have a six bed facility they're all mobile residents when you're talking then to the fire marshal or talking to a company that installs these fire suppression systems you can go to that and say I need to get a 13r system in there what is that going to look like for my home um you know it gives you a level of intelligence to
00:08:39
speak to it so you know exactly what um what you need to to talk to them about so that you're meeting those those um requirements that you have there in the facility so who is responsible um and as Smokey the Bear always says only you can prevent forest fires so um as cheesy as that sounds that is who is responsible for this as as the owner you are the person that is that is responsible for installing making sure these systems are installed making sure that they're staying in compliance that they are
00:09:10
tested regularly there are requirements that you have to do um and you will get dinged from the state when they do inspections if you are not staying up to date on those things so they will hold you accountable But ultimately you are the person that is responsible to make sure that these fire suppression systems are installed correctly in your home that they are meeting the needs of the residents the requirements of the state that you are providing that life safety to your residents to provide them with
00:09:36
some of the guidance that you know that protection so that they know exactly what they're getting into um as they they go into that um you also will want to get in touch with the local fire marshall for specific local and state guidelines so I I've talked about this a little bit with people um as they get started and trying to figure out if their home is a good home for them um to to do assisted living in they are going to need to talk to a city planner um somebody that that's going to be able to
00:10:05
give them information on the zoning um my experience with doing that is the next step once you find out that yeah it's zoned correctly or I need to do this take these steps to get it Zone correctly um is to talk to the Fire Marshall and the the city planner will be able to connect you with the correct person there at the Fire Marshall office so that they can come out and do an inspection on your home typically this inspection is going to be pretty quick um my experience is like 15 to 30 minutes they know exactly what they're
00:10:34
looking for when they go in the home and they can tell you yeah you need to widen the doorways here this hallway needs to be bigger um you're going to need a fire extinguisher here you need to maybe update this bathroom they can give you a lot of that guidance they also going to tell you what type of fire suppression system you would need in the home is it just fire extinguishers do you need to have a full suppression system and they probably have good contact information to help you understand what that's going
00:10:58
to look like for you so you can get the right things inside of the house so um big big crucial conversation you need to have there to make sure that you are in compliance so you can get your house regulated the way that it needs to be for fire suppression systems um if there are any questions here uh please type them in I would be happy to answer any questions you have whether it's about fire suppression systems or anything else I've got a few minutes here to chat with you and and let you um you know
00:11:28
type those questions in if you're watching this after still live then go ahead and type those in while you're doing that I will remind you to like the video subscribe and ring the bell uh as well so you get notified when we go live on Tuesdays and get that information that you need and if you have a topic that you are like man I'm dying to have this um put it down in the chat and I will add it to the queue of of things I have hundreds of video ideas um from things research that I'm doing if you
00:11:54
have something specific type it in and I will bump you to the to the start of the line so make sure you get in there um and yeah make sure you're also subscribed and like friending me on on Facebook so you get notified when we do this the the system that I use to to do these lives now is um making me do it on my personal profile and then I'll post it to the Facebook group so just kind of a uh quick thing for you to to know if you're doing that following me you'll get notified when these things go live
00:12:22
on Facebook as well so um with that said want to remind you as well to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net /vp checklist to get your free business plan checklist it's going to help you through the process of building that Foundation everything you need to get started and if you're interested in learning more about how I can help you launch that Assisted Living business then get over to Assisted Living investing. netmaster mind we're as of the recording of This we're doing
00:12:48
a promo that's going to end here in the next week so if you are interested in learning more about that or think it's a good fit for you make sure you get over there um schedule a call with me reach out and uh we can can do that before the promo ends um or you can save $1,000 if you jump in now um as we get things going so make sure you get over to the website Assisted Living investing. netmaster uh to learn more about that and uh those residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't
00:13:17
know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we are here to help you through the process start to finish to learn how to launch your Assisted Living business to create that time and Financial Freedom that you're looking for want to thank you for watching thanks for being here and talk to you later thanks for watching have a great day
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