Is it a Real Fire?
It is clear that too many false alarms can prejudice the safety of occupants, who may not react correctly when the system responds to a real fire if they have experienced a number of false alarms.
Complacency can be a very dangerous thing at the best of times but complacency that leads to ignoring an alarm simply because it is highly unlikely to be genuine could be quite literally fatal.
What the legislation says
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, part of the Fire Safety Law, the responsible Person for the premises must ensure that any fire detection and warning systems installed are covered by a suitable system of management and maintenance and are maintained by a competent person, for it to be considered fit for purpose.
If your fire alarm system is well designed, maintained and managed it should generate no more false alarms than 2 per 100 detectors in a 12 month period 200 detectors = 2 to 3 false alarms and 400 detectors = 3 to 4 false alarms.
If it produces more, then it may be considered not to be fit for purpose and therefore not compliant with the legislation.
Call challenge
In the future calls from low to medium risk category premises (the majority of industrial, commercial and education premises) will be subject to their alarm activations being "call challenged". In essence this will mean questions will be asked of the responsible/competent person as to the reason for the alarm activation.
Competent persons should be appointed to assist in the investigation of the alarms activation. They should have an understanding of the alarm system and be confident in their ability to carry out the investigation.
We do not want to discourage anyone from making an emergency 999 call if they genuinely believe there is a fire.
Some relevant points to consider when carrying out an alarm investigation can be found by clicking on the link button below.
Disabling Alarm Receiving Centre function whilst premises occupied
Serious consideration should be given to taking the alarm system "Offline" with the Alarm Receiving Centres (A.R.C.) whilst your premises are occupied. This protocol would require that an investigation of the premises is carried out when the alarm activates, and 999 called if signs of fire are discovered.
There will be a need for the premises emergency action plan to be reviewed and amended to ensure the process in place is suitable and sufficient.
Whilst "Offline" the premises fire alarm will still activate but no signal will be received by the alarm receiving centre and as such no call will be automatically sent to the Fire & Rescue Service.
