The Idiot s Guide To Fire Watch Guards Explained

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 guarantee that the Fire Services are free to deal with real emergencies.

If false alarms occur many times, they may have a real and disruptive impact on your business and productivity. The other negative impact can be that if you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond without a specific manual request. That is not good news if you ever have a real Fire Watch Guards.

A false alarm can be a symptom of a fault on your system, so they should never be ignored. If you can't find the cause of an alarm activation, it's always best to call within an engineer to investigate the problem. The last thing you'll 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 just isn't 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 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 alarm. You can deal with these by way of a few simple procedures:

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

Make this information 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 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's included in staff manuals, operating plans, etc.

Have a Hot Works Permit system or similar mechanism to make sure 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 done within an area with smoke detectors in, unless the detectors are properly protected.

Make sure that someone has specific personal responsibility for going through 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 during the period of work (with paper, plastic, etc).

This will 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 (for example someone in the area with specific fire-watching brief during the period of works).

Ensure that 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 so that the alarm system is fully functional straight away.

Make sure that the fire alarm system is tested in the event the work is completed, to make sure that it's functioning correctly.