Fire and safety methods

1
Fire and safety methods
2
How to reduce false fire alarms

• reduce false fire alarms are a prevalent issue
  for fire services up and down the country. To
  demonstrate how widespread the problem is, UK
  fire and rescue services were erroneously called
  out to more than 200,000 incidents in the last
  year. That is a lot of wasted time and resources.

3
Firstly, why are false fire alarms a problem?

• False fire alarms are at best a waste of time and
  at worst, can lead to deadly complacency. If your
  business has unnecessary fire alarms, you will be
  disrupting work and reducing your employees
  productivity. Furthermore, repeated unnecessary
  fire alarms which involve the fire service can
  also lead to you being charged as a punitive
  measure, and as a deterrent to letting the
  situation continue. Clearly, if the fire service
  is responding to your false alarm then they are
  unable to respond to an actual emergency which is
  a waste of resources and potentially dangerous.
  Furthermore, repeated false fire alarms could
  result in your staff treating an alarm with
  complacency and not responding in the necessary
  fashion for an actual fire on the extreme end of
  the scale, this could be fatal.

4
Common causes of false fire alarms

• Apparatus malfunction/poorly maintained
  apparatus in 2015-16, 66 of false alarms were
  due to an error with the apparatus
• Steam
• Burnt cooking
• Dust, e.g. from building work
• Accidental triggering
• Malicious triggering, e.g. pranksters

5
Prevention

• The first step to preventing false fire alarms is
  identifying what their main source is in your
  individual circumstance. If, for example,
  accidental triggering is a recurring problem,
  consider getting plastic covers for your fire
  call points. Alternatively, for malicious
  triggering, installing CCTV can deter, and help
  you catch, the guilty party. If steam or cooking
  smoke are a problem, creating better ventilation
  for these areas could help.
• A wide ranging solution, and good general
  practice, is carrying out frequent fire alarm
  checks to help you prevent issues before they
  occur. Increasing maintenance of fire apparatus
  will help deter insects, and any dust/dirt build
  up or faults can be remedied early on. Make sure
  you at least stick to the maintenance schedule
  for your apparatus set out in your Fire and
  safety.

6
Guide to Types of Fire Alarms

• A fire alarm is the best way of ensuring you and
  your colleagues are alerted as soon as possible
  if a fire occurs within the commercial
  environment. Employers are legally obliged to
  protect the people who work within their premises
  from the threat of fire, and one of the best ways
  to do this is to have a fire detection system in
  place to alert all persons of the event of a fire
  outbreak.
• There should be at least one smoke detector
  fitted per floor, although for larger
  environments more alarms will be needed to ensure
  everyone within the premises is alerted in time.
  Here at DPL Fire and Security, our trained
  installers will be able to advise on the best
  system for your environments needs. There are
  several types of smoke detector used in Fire and
  safety methods

7

• Ionisation
• Ionisation alarms are most sensitive to flaming
  fires that could be triggered by materials such
  as paper or wood, and will detect this type of
  fire before smoke becomes too thick.

8

• Optical
• These tend to be the more expensive type of
  alarm, but are more effective at detecting
  slow-burning fires e.g. from overheated wiring or
  smouldering furniture. Optical alarms are less
  likely to go off accidentally, so are best for
  ground-floor rooms and hallways nearer to
  kitchens.

9

• Interconnected/Addressable
• These exist in most commercial facilities, and
  are controlled by fire alarm control panels.
  Interconnected detectors can sound simultaneously
  if smoke or fire is detected in one area, and can
  also be used to implement more complex functions
  such a staged evacuations i.e. test drills.

10
Fire and safety

• Emirates Fire Rescue
• Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Street,
• Al Qudra Holding Building, Floor No. 2,
• Ministries Area, Abu Dhabi.
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Email info_at_emiratesfire.ae