A year ago this month, fire and rescue authorities began the process of signing up premises under CFOA’s false alarms policy. This article from Hochiki looks at the steps installers and users can make in helping to achieve these reductions.
False alarms are becoming an ever-increasing issue for the fire detection industry, with some systems being installed without considering their integral reliability.
In comparison, the security industry has already been addressing false activations for some years. The issue came to a head a few years ago when police forces were no longer willing to accept the very high level of false alarms – a staggering 97% of calls generated by monitored alarms were false at the height of the problem. In consultation with the alarms industry, police forces put into place a policy of progressive downgrading of response to systems that proved troublesome, and would stop attending altogether those which gave persistent false alarms. As part of the policy, police have been encouraging the use of confirmation technology on new installations.
For a monitored system, each site has a central station link with a Unique Reference Number (URN) and a method of verifying an alarm. This has substantially reduced unwanted calls to the police, saving valuable resource and costs. Now it’s time for the fire industry to follow suit and examine this topic from all angles, to minimise the consequences of false alarms.
Currently, the UK experiences approximately 450,000 unwanted fire signals per year (1232 calls per day). This high incidence places an unacceptable burden on fire services and jeopardises lives by misapplying resources. Additionally, the effect of ‘rogue systems’ on business productivity can be substantial with the downtime penalty for a large commercial building, due to a fire evacuation, imposing losses estimated to be as high as GB pound 500,000 to GB pound 1,000,000 an hour. A reduction of false alarms by only 10 percent in the UK is thought to amount to a GB pound 53 million saving.
These are unnecessary costs to businesses and to the fire and rescue service, and could cost lives. The only way forward is it educate users at the point of specification and installation, rather than attempting to cure false alarms once a problematic system has been installed. With the imminent introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order later this year, together with the Chief Fire Officers’ Association (CFOA) model agreement which began being implemented last year, the situation is expected to improve. However, this conscientiousness has yet to be entrenched within the industry, and systems are still being installed that have the potential for unwanted alarms.
At each stage of designing and installing a system, the responsible person should verify the previous phase to provide a quality control check. This process is even more essential where the design is based on a set of drawings. In such cases it is not uncommon, during final installation, for the engineer to find a number of changes have occurred during the design of the building and that the paper design does not match the physical reality (such as a location’s change of use). The installation and commissioning engineers need sufficient training and confidence to recognise that the original design will potentially cause problems, and to either make suitable adjustments to the system or refer it back to the original designer.
Once an individual has been trained through a recognised scheme (for example, BFPSA, BAFE SP203), and is deemed a competent person, this competence can be applied to minimise the occurrence of unwanted alarms arising from unsuitable system design.
Open or closed?
There has been much discussion recently over the relative benefits of either open or closed/managed protocol systems and value to the end user. The choices open to the specifier are either:
– A closed/managed protocol supplier who will supply all the components of the fire alarm system (such as detectors, call points, I/O modules and panel), with that supplier being the only sales outlet for the product and any support (i.e. the user is ‘locked in’ to the supplier). While it is to be hoped that this approach ensures system component compatibility, this option leaves the system user with little choice, if any, when faced with a problematic system.
– An open protocol supplier who will have the components of a fire alarm system supplied by different manufacturers. These products should be widely available throughout the fire systems industry, giving the specifier the choice to select the best performing products and services, ensuring flexibility, freedom and security for the end user. Additionally, there will be more options open to the user to deal with problematic systems or services.
In the UK, Hochiki is one of the leading manufacturers of open protocol products. It ensures total compatibility with all its control panel partners through a rigorous programme of testing and certification.
Installing high-quality approved products can not only reduce faults and false alarms, but can also help the installer during the critical installation and commissioning phase of a project. Often, the fire alarm is one of the last systems installed in a project, so additional pressure is on the installer to finish on schedule. But any additional time spent investigating system faults or replacing failed product at the installation/commissioning phase leads to costs accumulating on site, and increases the risk of penalty clauses being invoked.
Management of false alarms
Even a well-designed system can suffer from false alarms, due to environmental conditions that either were unknown during the design process, or are found to be transitional. The installer or maintainer needs an arsenal of management tools onsite to overcome the problems caused by these conditions which, if left unchecked, could compromise the life safety of the occupants.
Hochiki’s ESP system has a variety of features to avoid false alarms. Some of these are initiated automatically, while others are programmable to meet specific site needs. These include:
– Data integrity – Parity & Checksum data verification is included to ensure data errors are detected and not acted upon
– Drift compensation – Automatic re-calibration of detectors ensures they are constantly operating at optimum performance
– Variable sensitivity – All sensors can have their sensitivity varied to suit the risk area, either on a permanent or a day/night basis
– Alarm verification – Using time delay algorithms, each sensor can be individually programmed to eliminate unwanted activations from transient conditions.
These features can be used individually or in unison to ensure the system works in complete harmony with its everyday environment, with the aim of eliminating unwanted alarms.
The maintenance of a system is important in two ways. For the fire company, it’s a continued revenue stream and allows it to monitor the system for any change of use. For the end user, it represents protection, ensuring the system functions correctly and within specification to protect company assets. The level of maintenance will depend upon a number of factors: the age of system; its environment; the quality of installation; and materials used. Installing a high-quality product ensures that the maintainer has lower call-out costs, and makes sure that the building owner has a reliable, false alarm free, system while enjoying the lowest total cost of ownership.
Modern analogue addressable systems can help in significantly reducing costs and unwanted alarms at all stages, from the design of the system through to the maintenance and any possible future system modifications or extensions. Although individual elements of such systems may be more expensive at the start, these costs soon become offset through the ‘futureproof’ features of the system, yielding long term savings with:
– Reduction of false alarms saving costs on maintenance and call-outs
– System logic, allowing control and monitoring of plant and other related systems
– Flexibility to easily add new devices or functions to the system
– Self-monitoring and diagnosis where system alerts the user to any fault condition
– Planning. With the ability to interrogate sensors, contamination levels can be assessed and cleaning or replacement can be efficiently scheduled, to reduce unwanted alarms and avoid call outs between scheduled maintenance visits.
The future
The fire system is, it is to be hoped, a passive system for its entire life (apart from its scheduled tests). Its continued reliable operation around the clock for many years, free of the anxiety and confusion of false alarms, is the key to the protection of the building and its occupants. The introduction of the RRFSO, as well as the CFOA model agreement, will help to place greater emphasis on ensuring the continued, reliable operation of systems. It is now long overdue for the fire detection industry, specifiers and end users to take this issue seriously and reduce the costs to both businesses and the fire service.
Chief Fire Officers’ Association policy on false alarms –
Relationships & Responsibilities
The Chief Fire Officers’ Association policy on remotely monitored fire alarm systems sets out the relationships between those responsible for the premises, the alarm receiving centres, (ARCs) and the fire & rescue service. In 2002, nearly 8000 false alarms were passed to the fire and rescue service, representing 35% of all calls.
The policy aims to:
– Require remotely monitored fire alarm systems to be designed, installed, commissioned and maintained to appropriate high standards, and that competent persons are used for these purposes
– Improve fire safety management of the protected premises
– Reduce the impact of false alarms on business and commerce
– Enable the fire and rescue service to safely deploy its emergency intervention resources on the basis of risk
– Prevent complacency of building users when the are subject to repeated false alarms
– Reduce the waste of resources that result from false alarms
It provides for progressive registration with the local fire authority of systems over a three year period, starting with the poorest performing ones. Details to be logged include the size and scope of the system and the risk it is protecting. Like intruder alarms, a unique reference number (URN) will be issued and used by the ARC to identify the premises when fire signals are passed to the brigade. In most cases, single private dwellings are excluded from the requirement.
Each fire and rescue authority will monitor the number of false alarms and determine the level of emergency response appropriate, based on the performance of the fire alarm system. In general, response options will be proportionate to the level and type of risk determined by the F&RS risk assessment and the reliability of information received by the control room.
The response of fire and rescue services will fall into one of three categories:
– Attendance level one: an immediate emergency response
– Attendance level two: in the absence of a confirmation call, the attendance may be made under non-emergency conditions, so maintaining the availability of resources for other confirmed emergencies and protecting the public form the risk involved with fire engines responding in an emergency
– Attendance level three: No emergency response, until a confirmation is received using 999 or 112
The requirement to apply for a URN will become mandatory for all non-domestic systems from 1 April 2007 Without a URN, no emergency response will be provided, and the number will be also used to establish the appropriate level of response in accordance with the performance of the system.
