The importance of managing false alarms - fire services and BS 5839 Part1

It’s really important to have a fire safety procedure in place should the worst happen. Having correctly installed alarms, fire exits planned and the correct fire safety equipment all make your building as safe as possible. Carrying out regular fire drills also helps to refine your escape plan so that everyone can be safely evacuated out of the building should a fire occur.

With this, it is just as important to record when false alarms happen too. They allow you to manage when and how false alarms are caused so that you can fix any problems.

When are false fire alarms often caused?

False fire alarms can be caused by a number of things. You may often find that there is a sensitive fire or smoke alarm installed in a kitchen so that every time an appliance such as a toaster is used, the fire alarm goes off for the whole building.

Sensitive fire alarms set up in other areas of buildings can also mean they are easily triggered. Aerosols such as deodorants can set fire alarms off and so considering this when having all of your fire and smoke alarms put in is really important.

What do to

If you find that you are having regular false fire alarms, it would be a good idea to reassess your entire fire safety strategy for your home or place of work. Take a look at what is causing your regular false fire alarms and how to resolve this.

Making sure you record false fire alarms means that you can go through your building and record what may be triggering a false alarm. Without a record of this, it’s really difficult to know which parts of your fire safety procedure need looking at.

False fire alarms can be time consuming and costly for businesses. Evacuations of buildings can lead to downtime of machinery which could result in a potential loss of earnings. When hearing regular false alarms, there is also a possibility that people may get used to this and not believe when there is a real fire.

Best fire safety practices

Having a fire safety procedure in place provides peace of mind should the worst happen. It means that if a fire does occur, you have everything in place to ensure everybody in the building can be evacuated as quickly and safely as possible.

Walking through your building and ensuring all fire exits are easily identifiable and clear is a great start to ensuring fire safety, carrying out regular fire drills and testing alarms should also be done on a regular basis.

Having the appropriate fire safety equipment for your building is also a must. For example, making sure you have a fire blanket in the kitchen at work and the right fire extinguisher for your office means that everyone can be much safer.

Making sure you have a fire safety checklist is also really important as it means important steps can never be missed. Remember, recording false fire alarms means that you can go back and address the problem so that they are reduced. The last thing you would want is for somebody to think there was a false fire alarm and it was actually the real thing.