Preventing property damage and business loss with top-quality fire protection in the Philippines

Treasure Island Industrial Corporation (TIIC) was founded in the 1950s, with its headquarters based in Cebu, satellite locations in Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Iloilo, Tacloban and Cavite, plus a network of local distributors. The company serves the construction industry and domestic customers with a diverse portfolio of products. In particular, Island Premium Paints, their flagship paint brand, produces paints, varnishes, finishes, sealants, wood chemicals and coating agents. Other TIIC products include adhesives, thinners and removers.

Powerful industrial products, however, typically contain chemical ingredients which pose various risks and hazards. Many paints, varnishes and gloss lacquers are highly flammable. Paint thinners emit vapors which burn rapidly and are harmful to inhale. Products containing solvents and resins are both flammable and toxic to humans and the environment. Ingredients for manufacturing and finished products must therefore be appropriately handled, stored and transported to limit any risk of leakage, emission of fumes, damage to containers – and potential fires as a result.

Mr. Rustum Requina, Jr, Manager at Treasure Island’s EHS department, described the challenges to fire safety on their industrial sites: “The raw materials used to produce our paints and coatings products generate excessive dust. This causes many false alarms.” This is because classic fire detectors are not able to distinguish between different disturbance factors. Therefore, when dust rather than smoke particles contaminates the sensors, an alert is still triggered. Mr. Mark Rusiana, Safety Officer at the EHS Department of Treasure Island explains, “False alarms used to interrupt production so often that our employees became desensitized to them.”

Following the devastation this fire caused to the entire company, Mr. Requina and his colleagues needed reassurance that such a catastrophe could not be repeated. They sought a reliable early fire alarm system to at least minimize the impact of any fire, but ideally prevent it from happening at all. Mr. Requina spoke with Greg Velasco Jr., of the system integrator JRJ Solution Enterprise. After an evaluation of the site’s layout, operations and potential hazards, it was decided that an AVENAR 8000 fire panel and detectors from the AVENAR 4000 series from Bosch would provide an ideal solution. Greg contacted local Bosch partner United Electrical to obtain this system for his customers at TIIC.

The system integrators installed detectors with optical and thermal sensors to ensure fire alarms would be sounded by excessive heat, smoke or flames. The Dual Ray Technology in AVENAR detectors significantly reduces false alarms in dusty production spaces as the sensors reliably detect and differentiate between disturbance factors like dust particles, which used to trigger so many false alarms at TIIC, and signs of real alarm conditions. Mr. Ong says, “Having a reliable fire detection and alarm system from a known brand helps ease our minds that our facilities are safe.”