Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Client Communications Coordinator Megan Lockhart discuss the importance of fire prevention in California and its relevance to the construction industry.

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Director/Host: Alyssa Burley

Guest: Megan Lockhart

Producer/Editor: Lauren Stumpf

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “News Room News” by Spence

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Transcript

Alyssa Burley: Hi, this is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa's Media Communications and Client Services Department. Thank you for listening to today's top Rancho Mesa News. Brought to you by our Safety and Risk Management Network, StudioOne. Welcome back, everyone. My guest is Megan Lockhart, Client Communications Coordinator with Rancho Mesa. We’ve just entered the month of October, which is National Fire Prevention Month. So, in honor of that, today we’ll be talking about the importance of fire prevention in California and its relevance to the construction industry. Megan, welcome to the show.

 Megan Lockhart: Yeah, thanks for having me, Alyssa.  

 AB: So as I mentioned, October is Fire Prevention month which was initiated by the National Fire Protection Association to help spread awareness about fire safety and prevention across all industries and households. Megan can you tell us why fire prevention is important for the construction industry?

 ML: Yeah, so, the risk of fire is very high in construction-related industries. Construction jobsites pose high risk because they usually have a lot of fire hazards such as temporary electricity for lighting, portable heaters, or smoking on breaks. And especially when there is welding, soldering, grinding, or flammable liquids and gasses on the job site, that increases the risk of fire even more so. In 2020 alone, local fire departments responded to 4,750 fires in structures under construction. So you know, fire prevention is very important in this industry.

 AB: Absolutely. Not only is there a high risk of fire on jobsites, I know for us in California, historically, we experience the dangers of wildfires on what seems like an annual basis.

 ML: Yes, absolutely, the month of October and November holds particularly high risk for wildfires across the state, but especially Southern California. Those Santa Ana winds mixed with the dry brush and warm weather increases wildfire risk during these months. So, this is also why it’s important for employers to take a closer look at what they are doing to prevent fire on the job. 

 AB: Agreed, and Rancho Mesa offers educational resources to help clients do that. The SafetyOne™ app offers courses on several fire prevention topics. Megan, is there any other resources you’d like to add?

ML: Yeah, so along with that, we’ve also added more dates to our Wildfire Prevention and Wildfire Smoke Regulations webinar to the calendar this month and next month if listeners are interested in registering for that. And also for reference, the CalMatters website, which is a California nonprofit organization, has a wildfire tracker dashboard where you can view the current wildfires affecting areas across the state.

 AB: Great, and we will include links to the webinar registration and the wildfire tracker in the episode notes.  Megan, I appreciate the insight and thanks for joining me in StudioOne™.

 ML: Of course, thank you so much.

 AB: This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning into our latest episode produced by StudioOne. For more information, visit us at ranchmesa.com subscribe to our weekly newsletter.