Reacting to the fire
Torbjørn Haugen, Operation Manager at Brav Norway AS, which owns the Swix brand, was working from home on the day of the incident.
“First, I thought this was a false alarm. I always get a call from the alarm centre when the alarm has gone off and if I am not on the location when this happens, I tell them to go there, to be safe. This decision turned out to be vital in this case. As soon as I realised the alarm was real, I made the two-hour drive from my home to the factory. Meanwhile, my colleagues on-site were doing everything they could, just as we had practiced. They went to the central panel to locate the area of the fire, they detected the reason of the fire, and then provided firefighters with needed information upon their arrival, making it possible for them to extinguish the fire swiftly”, Haugen says.
“In the hours following, we focused on minimising the impact of the fire, for example by keeping the factory gates open. This required security staff to watch the gates during the night. We saved as much equipment and material as possible, carrying these out of harm’s way. To get an overview of the magnitude of the loss, If Insurance sent a Loss Adjuster who was given the mandate to take decisions and act quickly. This was a huge advantage, allowing us to be able to move forward with vital steps in the rebuilding phase. Our focus was also to provide the necessary support to our colleagues who were emotionally impacted by this fire event.”
The loss
A fortunate twist came with the timing of the fire, occurring in the month of July, as the factory was about to be shut down only a few days later for the summer holidays. Therefore, despite the damage, no downtime occurred in production. During the summer holidays, a provisional heating system was installed.
After the fire was extinguished, there was significant smoke and soot damage on the premises. Although some smoke had entered the warehouse, causing damage to goods, the fire did not spread further. This was also very fortunate, as high-value goods were stored in the warehouse.