Essential information for clients with Monitored Fire Alarms from Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue

by Infused Media Ltd | March 5, 2019

Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service along with their Tri-Service partners, Derbyshire & Leicestershire Fire & Rescue Services, have adopted a new unwanted fire signals procedure.

Why is this procedure be brought in?

During 2017, the fire service attended over 3000 calls to Automatic Fire Alarms (AFA) which turned out to be false alarms. Attending false alarm calls is a resource intensive drain on the fire service and diverts them away from those that may need them most in emergency situations.

The fire service are committed to attending fires as quickly and as effectively as resources permit, however a distinction needs to be made between a confirmed emergency call, where the caller is certain that their assistance is required, and an unconfirmed fire alarm generated by an automatic system.

What will the new procedure be? 

The fire service has now implemented call challenging 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This call challenging will place emphasis on the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) or Fire Alarm Monitoring Organisation (FAMO) to gather additional information from the occupier through further investigation of the premises. The outcome of this investigation will determine if an attendance will be made by the fire service or not.

Does this new procedure affect my premises? 

The following premises types will be will be exempt from call challenging due to their greater risk of life and to the wider community:

• Domestic premises including Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO);
• Residential flats;
• Sheltered housing;
• Residential care and nursing homes;
• Local Primary Care Trust Hospitals and Private Hospitals which have sleeping on site;
• Hotels during night-time hours only (21:00hrs – 08:00hrs) , During the day, hotels will be call challenged;
• Other sleeping risks;
• Sites that present a greater risk of injury to firefighters due to the hazards on site and where we have gathered detailed risk information;
• Heritage sites listed as Grade I or Grade II by Historic England;
• High rise premises with sleeping risk;
• A premises not conforming to the above criteria but is locally determined to be unsuitable for call challenging

A copy of the AFA Tri-Service procedure is available by clicking here.

A set of frequently asked questions and responses can be accessed by clicking here.

Additional information from the National Fire Chiefs Council on reducing unwanted fire signals can be accessed by clicking here.

APS Security & Fire are here to support our clients through this transitional period if you wish to discuss these changes in further detail or have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us on 0115 946 1510.