The multi-stakeholder study – involving the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), Association of British Insurers (ABI), British Approvals for Fire Equipment (BAFE), Building Research Establishment (BRE), CBRE, CS Todd & Associates, Fire Industry Association (FIA) and Glasgow City Council – has already made some easily implemented recommendations.
Fitting call point covers or stoppers to protect manual break-glass call points from accidental damage and using key switches to ‘turn off’ alarm signalling during regular weekly system testing, are among the initial prescriptions for addressing the problem.
Early findings from the project, which began in December with a brief to identify the causes of false alarms triggered by fire detection systems, suggest that changes to both British Standards and Building Regulations might be warranted to minimise the risk of unwanted alarms.
UK fire and rescue services (FRS) are erroneously summoned to more than 200,000 incidents every year, with the total cost to businesses and the fire service exceeding £1bn.
“Unwanted false alarm signals are a significant issue for Fire and Rescue Services so it’s important we join with our partners to see them reduced,” says Assistant Chief Officer (ACO) Lewis Ramsay, the SFRS Director of Prevention and Protection
In-depth research has been conducted by SFRS officers and a fire detection specialist. When the Unwanted Fire Alarm Signals (UFAS) team attended a false alarm call they gathered as much information about the alarm system and the site as possible with a view to establishing what triggered the false alarm.
Over the course of four months the project has conducted more than 80 site investigations and this data is now being analysed at the Building Research Establishment (BRE).
“This type of project is long overdue,” says Chairman of the Fire Industry Association Martin Harvey. Everyone knows the importance of having a well-designed and maintained fire alarm system. No one from business, the fire alarm industry or fire and rescue service wish to see false alarms.”
The BRE has previously conducted its own study into the problem called The causes of false fire alarms in buildings. A specialist team from Europe, where unwanted fire alarms are also a scourge of the fire service, are hoping to attend the Unwanted Fire Alarm Signals summit at which the full report released later this year.
The study’s objectives are:
Correction: On 5 June 2015 a correction was made to this article. Until then the article erroneously stated that “Over the course of four months the project has conducted more than 80 site investigations and this data is still being analysed at the Building Research Establishment (BRE).” This could have been interpreted as meaning that the BRE had taken an unnecessarily long time to conduct analysis. This was rectified to more accurately state that “this data is now being analysed”
Enjoy the latest fire and security news, updates and expert opinions sent straight to your inbox with IFSEC Insider's essential weekly newsletters. Subscribe today to make sure you're never left behind by the fast-evolving industry landscape.
Sign up now!
This just shows that reducing false alarms is not rocket science – just good management mainly. Too many of those ‘managing’ systems are incompetent. This is not necessarily their fault, as they are often nominated for this important task without any pre or subsequent training. For some problems a specialist may be needed, such as an ‘in-depth’ investigation if the false alarm rate reaches BS trigger levels. However, just keeping the log book (if there is one in the first place) up to date with details of each incident. This information is vital to the service engineer and any other… Read more »
This just shows that reducing false alarms is not rocket science – just good management mainly. Too many of those ‘managing’ systems are incompetent. This is not necessarily their fault, as they are often nominated for this important task without any pre or subsequent training. For some problems a specialist may be needed, such as an ‘in-depth’ investigation if the false alarm rate reaches BS trigger levels. However, just keeping the log book (if there is one in the first place) up to date with details of each incident helps greatly and is a requirement of BS 5839-1. This information… Read more »