Northants Evening Telegraph
NORTHHAMPTONSHIRE, England — Firefighters in Northamptonshire will no longer automatically turn out to every fire alarm from today.
Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service has revealed it is changing the way it works because 98 per cent of the automatic fire alarm callouts it attends are false.
The change will not apply to places likes homes, hospitals, care homes and high-rise and unoccupied buildings but businesses have been advised firefighters may no longer automatically respond to their automatic fire alarms to ensure they are free to tackle real fires.
The fire service’s area manager for service delivery, Darren Dovey, said: “We’ve been working hard to address the issue on unwanted fire signals which has a widespread impact across the county.
“Vital staff and appliances are being sent to deal with unwanted fire signals and so aren’t available to respond to genuine emergencies.
“By introducing this new policy, and improving engagement with a greater number of businesses across the county, the number of false alarms the service is called to will reduce. This will have a measurable impact on community safety across the county.”
Under the change, fire service control room staff will receive training to help them better establish the cause of an alarm, rather than automatically dispatching fire engines.
The fire service will also work more closely with people who are responsible for fire safety arrangements at premises.
Northamptonshire County Council cabinet member for customers and communities, Cllr Andre Gonzalez de Savage, said: “On average, false alarms caused by automatic detection systems make up around 30 per cent of incidents attended by our fire and rescue service, diverting our resources from the people and emergencies which need them most.
“We’re putting in place a policy to help us to respond quickly when a fire has been confirmed and provide the appropriate level of response and to look at why a false alarm has occurred in a premises to see what can be done to reduce the likelihood of it reoccurring by working with those responsible.”
On average, county firefighters respond to 2,718 false fire alarm callouts each year.
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