NEW London Fire Brigade Policy on Automatic Fire Alarms

Similar to the Scottish policy announced last summer, the London Fire Brigade have released a change in their policy to Automatic fire alarms in commercial buildings.

Starting from October, the London Fire Brigade are reducing the amount of time and resources spent going to unwanted fire signals. Unless they receive a call reporting a confirmed fire, the fire service will stop automatically attending call outs between 7am and 8:30pm in buildings such as office blocks and industrial estates.

Of the 52,000 Automatic Fire Alarm calls attended in 2023/24, less than one percent of calls were ultimately recorded as fires, meaning the vast majority were false alarms.

99% of calls being false alarms is a massive waste of resources and time for the emergency services, taking their priority away from saving lives. By reducing time and resources wasted on false fire alarms, the fire brigade can put their services to better use and free Firefighters to attend real emergencies.

Not only do false alarm call outs drain resources and waste precious time and money, they can also lead to complacency and have costs associated to the business in which the false alarm takes place. Repeated false alarms cause alarm fatigue, which can be fatal to life if people do not respond in genuine emergencies because their sense of urgency is critically lowered.

Successfully reducing false alarms will reduce unwanted fire alarm signals, leading to less disruptions for businesses and eliminating unnecessary risk to the public and fire crews when they travel at high speed to attend ‘emergency’ calls.

The new policy, however, only applies to commercial buildings, meaning schools, residential buildings and many other types are exempt. It also only applies during daytime hours at residences where no one sleeps. Therefore, it is still vital to take other measures to reduce false alarms and protect manual call points from any unwanted use or accidental damage.

STI’s protective covers have been specifically designed to help deter false alarms and to prevent vandalism or accidental activation of manual call points. The strong, durable construction of our polycarbonate call point protectors means they can withstand the toughest knocks, whilst offering lasting protection against false alarms in a variety of situations.

Trust STI products to help protect the things that protect you®.

For more information on the new London Fire Brigade policy and to check if your building is exempt, visit here: https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/safety/the-workplace/automatic-fire-alarms/afa-policy/