Strange Facts About Fire Watch Guards

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 may be called out for no reason if your alarm system is automated. We should all do what we can to make certain that the Fire Services are free to handle real emergencies.

If false alarms occur many times, also they can have a real and disruptive effect upon your business and productivity. The other negative impact can be that should you have too many false alarms, the Fire Services will not respond without having a specific manual request. That is not great 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 can not 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 will need is for the exact same thing to happen a day or two later because of same small fault. Even worse, it may very well be a signal that an element of the alarm isn't properly functioning, which could have a serious impact in the event of a real fire, allowing the fire to spread far more than it otherwise might.

Many false alarms are caused by people within the building not being aware that a fire alarm system is in place, or at least not knowing the kinds of thing that can activate the fire alarm. You may cope with these through a few simple procedures:

Ensure staff and visitors know that your input here 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 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 Well being as well as 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 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.

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

Make certain that someone has specific personal responsibility for managing this and 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 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 throughout the period of works).

Make sure that someone has the specific personal responsibility for removing the covering from the detectors when the work is finished. It's vital that this really is done promptly in order 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 make certain that it's functioning correctly.