Latest update on Fire response.
From 1st July 2023 the Scottish fire Brigade has withdrawn Automatic Fire Alarms (AFA) Call outs to Commercial
Businesses and Workplaces premises such as Factories, Offices, Retail and Leisure facilities, unless a fire has been physically confirmed.
Personal responsible for the premises in question should first investigate the fire alarm activation and verify its authenticity before calling the emergency services.
999 Control room will ask for confirmation of an active fire before sending on fire pumps.
Sleeping premises such as hospitals, care homes, Hotels or domestic dwellings will continue to get an emergency response.
Scottish Fire Brigade states that the positives are,
The change in response is estimated to greatly reduce unnecessary call outs in order to free up our firefighters to attend real emergencies and to allow them to do more community safety prevention work.
Each false alarm can lead people to become complacent when they hear the fire alarm.
There is a cost to you as a business from productive time lost.
SFRS will not be diverted from other emergencies, training and other prevention and protection work.
Blue light responses lead to road accidents, so any reduction means less risk on our roads.
It could be said that one of the main negatives are,
If a fire starts in a Factory, Warehouse or other empty building and there is nobody available to investigate the fire alarm activation, the fire can then spread to joining or adjacent buildings before it is detected.
The Adjacent buildings may be, sleeping premises such as hospitals, care homes, Hotels or domestic dwellings.
When the Fire Brigade do eventually respond they will be faced with a much larger fire spread with the possibility of fatalities.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Services state they are committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the people of Scotland
Possible Solution
Fire alarm panels should evolve along the lines of Intruder Alarm Panels featuring sequential signalling options.
Perhaps Sequential updated Fire Panels should have been available and installed before the new rules from the The Scottish Fire and rescue service were implemented.
We will wait and see the outcome.