3 Secret Things You Didn t Know About Fire Watch Services

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 could possibly be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to make sure that the Fire Services are free to deal with real emergencies.

If false alarms occur sometimes, 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 with no specific manual request. Which 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's 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 because of same small fault. Even worse, it might be a signal that an element of the alarm is just not properly functioning, which could have a serious impact in the event of a real fire, allowing the fire to spread a lot more than it otherwise might.

Many false alarms are caused by people in the building not being aware that a fire alarm system is in place, or at least not understanding the kinds of thing that will activate the fire alarm. You may 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 these details 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."

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

Staff must 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 which will undertake work on the premises.

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

Ensure that someone has specific personal responsibility for coping with this and similar matters.

If possible, smoke detectors can 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 through 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 someone within the area with specific fire-watching brief during the period of works).

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

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