03 February 2012

Merseyside Fire and Rescue

Posted by: David
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The Fire Industry Association (FIA) has branded the decision of a fire service not to attend unconfirmed automatic fire alarms as ‘confrontational’.

FIA chief executive Graham Ellicott said the decision by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service not to attend some automatic fire alarm calls was ill-conceived and potentially could lead to injuries or death.

He went on to slam comments by Merseyside’s chief fire officer, Dan Stephens, who told the Liverpool Post:

“Fire alarm monitoring organisations immediately pass the call to us, but what they should be doing is ringing up the premises and asking if they’ve checked. Every time (the alarm goes off) they should be evacuating, but that might not be happening either. We could prosecute for that, but that would be prosecuting an awful lot of people and that would be disproportionate.”

Writing on his blog, Mr Ellicott responded:

“These reported comments about the alarm monitoring firms are ill-considered, as the fire alarm monitoring organisations are akin to the postman who delivers the mail, and it’s not for them to read the mail and interpret which bits are fit to be read!

“In my opinion, this type of confrontational attitude...is no way to constructively deal with the false automatic alarm signals problem and...could lead the alarm monitoring organisations to consider whether dealing with fire signals is a worthwhile business. Should they choose to discontinue this business then this would be a disaster for fire safety and would most likely reflect badly upon the proud reputation of the fire and rescue service.”

In almost all cases, he added, false alarms from automatic fire alarms are caused by poor building management.

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service defended its new ‘risk-based’ approach to automatic fire alarm response, saying the decision had been taken to reduce the 5,800 calls it receives from systems a year – up almost 14% over the past five years.

“95% of automatic fire alarm responses are to false alarms, and that takes appliances and firefighters away from being able to respond to real emergencies, carrying out risk critical training and providing community prevention services,” said Mr Stephens. “There is also a significant and unnecessary risk to firefighters and other road users from attending false alarms under emergency response conditions.

“We have tried numerous approaches to reduce this type of call but they have continued to increase.”

The fire service estimates that the new response policy will reduce the number of calls by 4,200 a year.