15 Common Misconceptions About Fire Watch Services

While emergency evacuation drills are good practice in fire safety as well as a key part of staff training, false alarms can simply be a waste of everyone's time. Not least for the emergency services, who could be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to ensure that the Fire Services are free to deal with real emergencies.

fire watch" style="max-width:430px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;">If false alarms occur sometimes, they can have a real and disruptive effect upon your business and productivity. Another negative impact may be that if you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond with no specific manual request. Which is not great news if you ever have a real fire.

A false alarm can be a symptom of a fault on your system, so they should never be ignored. If you can not find the cause of an alarm activation, it is always best to call within an engineer to investigate the problem. The very last thing you may need is for the same thing to happen a day or two later as a result of same small fault. Even worse, it could be a signal that an element of the alarm is not properly functioning, which could have a serious impact within the event of a real fire, allowing the fire to spread much more than it otherwise might.

Many false alarms are brought on by people in the building not being aware that a fire alarm system is in place, or at least not understanding the types of thing that can activate the fire alarm. You may handle these by way of a few simple procedures:

Ensure staff and visitors realize that your building is protected by an automatic fire alarm system

Make these details part of your induction training and fire safety training for all staff.

Have prominent notices up at all main entrances to your work environment. Use the following wording: "These premises are protected by an automatic fire alarm system. Please obtain permission from the site manager before undertaking any work involving flame, smoke, heat or sparks."

Make sure that no-one carries out any 'hot works' without permission from the Health and Safety Representative, fire Marshall, or whoever has responsibility for authorising such works

Staff need to find out that any work involving flame, smoke, heat or sparks must have special permission.

Build this into staff training and ensure it is included in staff manuals, operating plans, etc.

Have a Hot Works Permit system or similar mechanism to ensure that contractors working on site follow your safe working procedures.

Build this requirement into contracts with any contractors who shall undertake work on the premises.

Make certain that no work involving the generation of dust or the use of spray paint is performed within an area with smoke detectors in, unless the detectors are properly protected.

Make certain that someone has specific personal responsibility for working with this as well as similar matters.

If possible, smoke detectors can be replaced with heat detectors, but only by Escuelageneralisimo Edu a qualified engineer.

The alternative to swapping to heat detectors is to cover and protect the smoke detectors throughout the period of work (with paper, plastic, etc).

This should not be done lightly, as covered smoke detectors will clearly not work correctly, if at all, in the event of a real fire.

The matter should be risk assessed, and alternative means of detection put in place (such as a person in the area with specific fire-watching brief during the period of works).

Make certain that somebody has the specific personal responsibility for removing the covering from the detectors when the work is finished. It really is vital that this is done promptly to ensure that the alarm system is fully functional straight away.

Ensure that the fire alarm system is tested in the event the work is completed, to ensure that it is functioning correctly.