Fire Watch Services Tips Guide

While emergency evacuation drills are good practice in fire safety and 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 possibly be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to guarantee that the Fire Services are free to handle real emergencies.

If false alarms occur oftentimes, also they can have a real and disruptive effect on your business and productivity. Another negative impact can be that should you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond with no specific manual request. That is not good 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 last thing you will need is for the exact same thing to happen a day or two later as a result of same small fault. Even worse, it may very well 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 far 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 will activate the fire alarm. You can handle these through a few simple procedures:

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

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

Have prominent notices up at all main entrances to your place of business. 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."

Ensure 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 really is included in staff manuals, operating plans, etc.

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

Build this requirement into contracts with any contractors which will undertake work on the premises.

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

Make sure that somebody has specific personal responsibility for addressing this as well as similar matters.

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

The alternative to swapping to heat detectors is to cover and protect the smoke detectors during 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).

Ensure that someone has the specific personal responsibility for removing the covering from the detectors in the event the work is finished. It really is vital that this really is done promptly to ensure that the alarm system is fully functional straight away.

Ensure that the Fire Watch Services alarm system is tested in the event the work is completed, to be certain that it really is functioning correctly.