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In addition to the financial cost there is also the potential for
loss of life as the Fire Service fail to attend promptly, or at all,
to a real fire whilst attending a false alarm.
Whilst it is true that some calls
are malicious, and some made with genuine good intent, most are as
the result of equipment failure or other issues relating to the fire
detection system. These issues are generally related to poor system
maintenance or poor initial design.
As a result of this increasing
strain on the Fire Brigades, and in an effort to reduce public
spending, the authorities introduced The Fire & Rescue Services Act
2004. This piece of legislation came into effect at the same time as
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Combined together,
these two new pieces of legislation will impact greatly on the level
of response by the local Fire & Rescue Services to fire alarms and,
by impact, the quality of system design and maintenance.
Similar to how the Police operate in
relation to intruder alarms, the Fire Authorities are beginning to
issue Unique Reference Numbers (URN’s) to all fire alarm systems
connected to Alarm Receiving Centres (ARC’s). This is being carried
out in stages. The first systems to be issued with a URN will be
those from which false alarms are currently being received. This is
now happening. Equally, from 1st April 2008, all new fire alarm
systems that are connected to an ARC must be designed, installed and
commissioned by a third-party accredited company with BS5839-1:2002
within their scope. Eventually, every fire alarm system that is
linked to an ARC will be issued with a URN and monitored by the
local Fire & Rescue Services.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety)
Order 2005, which came into effect on 1st October 2006, requires
everyone to reduce the number of false, or unwanted, alarms to a
minimum. It also imposes two important legal requirements upon every
business which are to appoint a responsible person and carry out a
risk assessment. It is, therefore, the job of the Responsible Person
to ensure that all practical steps are taken to reduce the number of
false alarms. Ways of doing this include having a third-party
accredited company involved with the design, installation and
maintenance of your fire alarm system and maintaining your system in
accordance with BS5839-1:2002. Additionally you need to manage
building changes, train users, optimise your system and upgrade old,
obsolete systems. Changes to a remote monitored fire alarm system
must now be notified to the local Fire & Rescue Service
David Black of Newflame cautions
“The responsibility for controlling the number of false alarms rests
with the service provider maintaining the system. So their advice
must be taken seriously and acted upon. It should be noted that
since the introduction of this legislation, there has been a sharp
rise in prosecutions by local Fire & Rescue Services. You have been
warned!”
Peterborough UK
Community Website - June 2008 |
