Fire Watch Guards Overview
While emergency evacuation drills are good practice in fire safety and also a key part of staff training, false alarms can simply be a waste of everyone's time. Not least for the emergency services, who may be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to be certain that the Fire Services are free to cope with real emergencies.
If false alarms occur quite often, they can have a real and disruptive effect upon your business and productivity. Another negative impact may be that should you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond without having a specific manual request. That is not good news if you ever have a real fire.
A false alarm may be a symptom of a fault on your system, so they should never be ignored. If you cannot find the cause of an alarm activation, it really is always best to call in an engineer to investigate the problem. The final thing you may need is for the same thing to happen a day or two later due to same small fault. Even worse, it could possibly be a signal that an element of the alarm is just not properly functioning, which could have a serious impact within the event of a real fire, allowing the fire to spread far more than it otherwise might.
Many false alarms are a result of people in the building not being aware that a fire alarm system is in place, or at least not comprehending the kinds of thing that can activate the Fire Watch Guards alarm. You may deal with these through a few simple procedures:
Ensure staff and visitors know that your building is protected by an automatic fire alarm system
Make this data part of your induction training and fire safety training for all staff.
Have prominent notices up at all main entrances to your workplace. Use the next 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 certain 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 have to know 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 guarantee that contractors working on site follow your safe working procedures.
Build this requirement into contracts with any contractors who will undertake work on the premises.
Ensure that no work involving the generation of dust or even the use of spray paint is performed in an area with smoke detectors in, unless the detectors are properly protected.
Ensure that someone has specific personal responsibility for working with this and similar matters.
If possible, smoke detectors may be replaced with heat detectors, but only by an experienced 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 specific situation should be risk assessed, and alternative means of detection put in place (such as a person in the area with specific fire-watching brief throughout the period of works).
Make sure in which somebody has the specific personal responsibility for removing the covering from the detectors in the event the work is finished. It is vital that this is done promptly in order that the alarm system is fully functional straight away.
Make certain that the fire alarm system is tested once the work is completed, to make certain that it really is functioning correctly.
