Posted By Joe Ridley
Need help here with this one...when a fire alarm has been activated and building evacuated..who decides when the people can go back in if it is a false alarm that you (responsible person) have identified before the Fire and Rescue Service arrive? Is it the Fire service or the Responsible person?

I have people with different views on this and so far have not seen anything in the legislation on this, though I may be missing something...help appreciated

Joe

Posted By Kevin Brown
The question should be how do you know it's a false alarm? If the fire alarm panel is within the affected location does it mean you've delayed your own evacuation to read/interpret it? Have you physically checked the zone indicated on the panel, and if so, why? If it's a common fault on the system, is it a fault this time? Can the fault be fixed?
I think you'd be safe enough if you knew how the alarm occurred e.g. accidental or malicious breaking of a Break Glass call point, or during maintenance of the panel. But in most circumstances you would probably not be in a position to comment one way or another.

Posted By DPK
Oh No they wont turn up (the fire brigade that is), it depends which County you are in, but as a rule most will require a confirmation of suspected fire during the working day.
It is more complicated than this but this is a short answer.

There needs to be a nominated competent responsible person ideally, that coordinates the evacuation and can also authorise re-entry to the building.

DPK

Posted By Graham Smith
Once the alarm has been activated, the premises should be evacuated and the Fire Service allowed to attend even if it is obvious that it is a false alarm. The fire service will decide when they have checked out the premises if it is a false alarm. Its better that they give the all clear.
The senior Fire Officer will give you permission to re enter the building when they are happy that the situation is resolved.
It is also important not to allow the panel to be reset prior to the Fire Service arrival. If the panel is reset, the service will not be able to identify which device / detector has caused the inital actuation.

Posted By Messy Shaw
To ask the question posed, it is the Responsible Person's role to draw up and implement procedures to be followed in the event of an emergency.

Those plans must include evacuation plans which themselves should include delegating who will be responsible during that evacuation. That person (when armed with skills via adequate training proportionate to risk and circumstances)can be allocated the task to check the situation and give the all clear even if the fire service haven't arrived.

Consider a building in a rural area with a 15 to 20 minute arrival time from the local part time fire crew. Is it reasonable to keep everyone outside when you know 100% that the cause was a breakage of a manual call point??

It's likely that the fire crew attending won't be to happy, indeed if you have reset the system they may be furious. It seems a matter of courtesy (but not law) that if the fire service have been called, you should not reset your alarm system until they arrive (even if you silence it and allow people back in). Rest assured that fire alarms (if installed to BS5839 part 1) will remain 'active' even if they've not been reset

The ownership of responsibility for fire safety provision in any building is solely the responsible persons and not the fire service.

As has been said, many (but not all) fire services have thrown away the idea of "call us out when every time your fire alarm actuates". They now only want to be called out if a fire is suspected or confirmed. They now call these incidents 'unwanted fire signals' and if you enter "UwFS" into your local fire authorities website's search engine,(or Google) you may find their specific policy.