Attendance to false alarms reaches a staggering 1,200 per year
Reducing attendance to an increasing amount of Automatic Fire Alarms is at the heart of a new policy being launched by Warwickshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service.
The new Automatic Fire Alarm Policy (AFA’s) is being launched on Monday 27th September 2010 in a bid to reduce the staggering 1,200 AFA’s the service is called to attend each year. 99% of which, turn out to be false alarms or burnt toast in an office kitchen. The policy is being launched as one of the steps agreed with the general public in the Improvement Plan.
The main focus of the new policy will be to change the way the Service responds to automatic fire alarms in commercial and business premises by sending only a single fire appliance, unless a real fire is confirmed.
Presently the Service mobilises a full response to premises when calls to automatic fire alarms are received, sometimes this can mean up to six fire appliances attending a single incident.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Jim Onions said: “Central to our Improvement Plan is the reallocation of resources from areas that are not contributing sufficiently to improving safety, enabling us to prioritise in areas that ensure we have the right resources in the right place at the right time for life risk incidents.
“In addition, the new policy will make way for improved training, added capacity for community safety work and will release funds that will be re-invested in new equipment and capabilities, including equipment for heavy rescue and for waterborne rescues.”
Portfolio Holder for Community Protection, Councillor Richard Hobbs said:
“Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service are committed to reducing risk in Warwickshire, however attending 1,200 AFA’s each year is no longer sustainable or an effective use of resources.
"We have been communicating with alarm companies and managers of businesses to help them reduce their nuisance calls and to support them in managing the risk of fire in their premises.
"We are also advising businesses that if there is any concern that a fire has occurred when alarms operate, that the alarm call should be backed up with a ‘999’ emergency call. “
Once successfully implemented the second phase of the policy will be introduced which includes; following examples of best practise from other brigades who have successfully reduced their attendance AFA’s by over 50%.
It will also include a ‘false alarm, no attendance policy’ between the hours of 7am to 8pm, unless the alarm call is backed up with a ‘999’ emergency call, whereby a full attendance will be made on all occasions.
This will free up resources during the day for firefighters to deal with life risk incidents such as house fires and road traffic collisions and covers core hours when premises have a key holder on site.