You install smoke and heat detectors.

If you have a fire alarm system where there are individually addressed smoke and/or heat detectors, then the main control panel immediately tells you where the activation was. You can then quickly check it out (I would not recommend that a person does this alone).

With such a system the fire call points (red boxes) may not be individually addressed, but you can have a management system that demands that anyone activating one of these must report to the control area, to inform the person in control why the activation was made.

Why is it only possible to send one person to search? Surely, when short staffed you can allocate more of the available personnel to this job? Could you not have an out of hours procedure that involves a large proportion of the available personnel?

Faced with a very long wait in the car park to see whether or not the building is actually on fire, by waiting for visible signs of flame or smoke, the management may decide that more people can indeed be enlisted to help to search.

Just to clarify, this is a very large building with a cat L1 automatic detection system, linked to smoke, heat, aspirating, sprinklers and a gas extinguishing system. Several hundred heads are involved in this system

During the working hours, there of plenty of willing (OK, press ganged) volunteers to assist.

Out of hours, the buildings processes & systems go onto automatic and there may be only one person (security) available to carry out the search when the alarm is raised. This has been assessed as unsafe. The fire service will not attend unless the call is to a confirmed fire and to install CCTV in every one of the hundreds of rooms is not feasible. Employing extra staff at night is not possible.

Catch 22?? Another staff member could be despatched from another building, but it would take him/her 20 mins to get there.

Any ideas?

Messey is this a real situation?

I know times are hard enough for fire and rescue services to dictate these things but you really need to put them on the spot and let them know you refuse to place employees in potentially dangerous conditions in case a fire is developing and the employee could make matters worse by opening doors to access rooms where a fire just may be waiting for a breath of fresh air to make a good flashover.

Fire risk assessment is about protecting life and property.

There is the HASAW Etc. Act to observe and a risk assessment may not be able to provide a safe workplace.

i believe there is legislation going through parliament at present that will allow fire brigades to make these decisions legally but I also believe of you stand your ground thay will back off.

Written communication will help.

I am afraid this is real and is causing me a few headaches.

I simply cannot go into details as that would almost certainly scupper delicate talks I am engaged in, but this particular fire service is arguing that it's the RP's responsibility to check and only call the fire service when a fire is confirmed.(at which point they become legally obliged to attend)

Many fire authorities are introducing or considering similar procedures as they see a 'fire alarm actuating' call to be an indicator of a fire and not an actual fire or emergency. To be fair, you can't blame them as there are 1000s of firefighter hours wasted every year as crews chase their tales on such 'false' calls and all LAs are desperately trying to save cash.

Chris: the view of this particular F&RS is that providing a SSOW is the responsibility of the employer and not a public emergency service. They would also point out that a FRA is required by fire safety legislation to protect life and not property.

I have to say that they have a point, but this employer has not got the resources to recruit more staff or install additional infrastructure.

I am posting this issue, party to find a solution and partly to inform others that this practice is quite likely to become widespread. So if you rely on your local friendly fire crew to assist on a fire alarm actuation, start making other arrangements.

I wonder where this leaves BS 5839 Cat P systems linked to an alarm centre???

If the building is genuinely unoccupied at night time (save the security guard), then provided he gets warning/can escape and the likelihood of affecting adjacent properties (which may be occupied at night time) is low - then I would leave the building to burn.

Let the fire service tackle the fire from outside, with minimum risk to the fire fighters.

The Fire Safety RRO is really only concerned about the risk to life from fire, not property protection/business continuity..

If the fire risks are controlled as described the situation is then simply an insurance risk.

Accepted there is an argument for business continuity/job security etc - but again that is a risk for the company/organisation to take and insurance company.

Extract from RRFSO below - no mention of JUST property protection.

Duty to take general fire precautions

8.—(1) The responsible person must—

(a)take such general fire precautions as will ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety of any of his employees; and.
(b)in relation to relevant persons who are not his employees, take such general fire precautions as may reasonably be required in the circumstances of the case to ensure that the premises are safe


Risk assessment

9.—(1) The responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed for the purpose of identifying the general fire precautions he needs to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed on him by or under this Order.

Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004

Fire-fighting

A fire and rescue authority must make provision for the purpose of—
(a) extinguishing fires in its area, and
(b) protecting life and property in the event of fires in its area.
In making provision under subsection (1) a fire and rescue authority must in particular
—
(a) secure the provision of the personnel, services and equipment necessary
efficiently to meet all normal requirements;
(b) secure the provision of training for personnel;
(c) make arrangements for dealing with calls for help and for summoning
personnel;
(d) make arrangements for obtaining information needed for the purpose
mentioned in subsection (1);
(e) make arrangements for ensuring that reasonable steps are taken to prevent
or limit damage to property resulting from action taken for the purpose
mentioned in subsection (1).


The above extract is from an act of parliament - is it worthless if FRS can just do or not do as it pleases?

Messy, given the level of active protection in place, sending a lone person to search is probably unnecessary, although evacuation of any affected personnel is indicated. Rogue, spurious alarm activations need to be solved.

A real fire should cause the gas or water systems to operate at which time you have a second indication of fire and the lone worker can call 999. A kind of "double knock" perhaps upon which processes can be automatically shut down?

That of course leaves the problem of loud sounders and maybe annoyed neighbours, along with abandoned work and shivering workers... still chewing that one over.

Also, is it not still the case that the Service will respond to a human 999 call?

Following on from Zyggy's comment on Manchester's Fire Brigade initiative.

The following document spells out the process and how they will deal with calls.

http://www.manchesterfir...445/uwfs-strategy-v3.pdf

Thanks for all of the replies. Part of the reason for posting this subject was to start a debate regarding dealing with actuations either where there is a lone worker, or where there are no staff to check about the cause.

What is clear is that differing fire authorities seem to have differing procedures which doesn't help a company like mine with sites across the UK. I predict that the strategies will get tougher as public finances are squeezed further. Don't forget that good evidence that a fire station is getting quieter may help a fire service close it or remove appliances and\or crews. So a tough stance on unwanted fire signals can pay dividends for a cash hungry chief fire officer.

This building concerned in very large and in a city centre location with a busy road and sleeping accommodation adjacent. As people driving and sleeping nearby could be considered 'relevant persons' in the RRO, maybe the FRA should indeed consider the ramifications of a response (or no response) to a fire alarm call by the local fire service.

The building is so large that any fire maybe impossible to detect from the outside for many hours and impossible to reach via external (defensive tactics) fire fighting operations. Hazards are relatively low, but risk (in terms of consequences of an event shutting down the processes) is very high, so letting it burn is not an option.

The Fire & Rescue Services Act 2004 (apparently) does not apply, until there is a human report of a fire (not an automatic report)

My view is that the company must provide sufficient resources (extra out of hours staff) to be able to manage an incident safely. It is no surprise that they don't want to hear that. However, that is most likely to be the recommendation on my report.

Thanks once again to all contributors

Haven't time to read properly (that goes for the whole forum :( )

I was thinking can you not use a two knock approach for phoning the brigade - 1 activation point may =- false alarm, but multiple = call out.

No one is in there so this is surely a business continuity argument? My thoughts would be on single alarm guard monitors alarm system and awaits backup - if fire spread we are 'only' loosing the building.

If sprinkler systems or more sensors activate then it - 999 time?

Whatever happens guard remains 'safe'.

hmmmm not sure if I am imagining the right thing tho?

From Cheshire fire and rescue:
"we are seeking your views on a range of proposals to take the Service forward.

This includes a review of our operational activity, through which we are proposing to change the way we respond to automatic fire alarm systems, 95% of which are false alarms. This is a significant drain on our limited resources and we intend to consider a number of options, including reducing the resources we currently send to such calls and charging for repeat offenders. In the last few years the Service has worked hard to provide better support and advice to businesses – supporting Cheshire’s economy at a difficult time."

I used to work for a large university and the two-knock principle was the one that we operated on. The fire brigade wouldn't come out on a full response unless we confirmed that we had either signs of fire ie smell of smoke etc or two detectors going off. This could be seen on the alarm panel and didn't require anyone going back into the building.