LFB Consult on New AFA Attendance Policy

[Messyshaw]

....and about time too. 

I know I will be unpopular here, but its ridiculous for the UKFRS to continue sending crews to these calls, many of which are known to be 'false alarms' at the point where the 999 call is made.

Most automatic fire detection is designed to raise the alarm and alert people at risk so they can take measures to move to a place of safety.

The LFB have no place in this process unless it's a fire and the safeguards in this proposal seem (on the face of this press release) as a sensible risk based approach 

[Becile]

Agree, having been through this approach in my former Service I think it's a sensible risk based approach which saw little or no detrimental effect on the premises/people involved. Whilst insuring they were more responsible for their own proceedures and equipment rather than just relying on frs attendance. I'm sure some stations will see their call rates drop dramatically,but freeing up time for other activities.

[Rory-495]

Moving from LFB to West Mids was a game changer for me. We still go to alarms but they're categorised as sleeping managed/non managed and commercial. Lower call rate but less disturbance and unnecessary blue light runs putting us in harms way

[TrainHardFightEasy]

Soho call rates will drop in half overnight

[Messyshaw]

It just strikes me as odd that by law, the management of the building MUST develop plans to evacuate persons from there premises without fire service intervention. 

But there is no such legal responsibility for the managers to maintain a system to check that after an AFA system has been activated, there is a fire, prior to calling 999 and so many are happy for the fire service to make the decision, like a tick box/responsibility shifting exercise 

I hate any management system where it prioritises  'process' over 'people' - and this is certainly the case in many businesses where the fire service is called automatically - even when they know they are not needed 

Until recently, I was responsible for fire safety in a significant and large building in the capital that had nearly 4,000 devices attached to it's fire alarm system.  Smoke and heat heads, beam detection, VESDA, manual call points  and sprinklers, gas suppression systems. We had actuations weekly - sometimes 4 times a week, but we dealt with them internally and only called the LFB if a fire or some unknown situation had occurred simultaneously to an AFA activation. 

It was in our interest, as we didnt want the LFB turning up, making a fuss and interrupting business by unnecessary evacuations and investigations. Neither did we want to pull appliances away from where they should be. But this type of internal intervention costs a lot of money - especially in supplying regular training to around 50 persons and to some extent, equipment. Its about time these freeloaders who get the LFB to check for free were bought to account 

[Guest]

On 15/09/2023 at 15:52, TrainHardFightEasy said:

Soho call rates will drop in half overnight

Imagine their reaction when they finally get that elusive first taste of a full night in bed....

They'll all have transfers in within a week.

[Healdav]

On 15/09/2023 at 23:50, Messyshaw said:

It just strikes me as odd that by law, the management of the building MUST develop plans to evacuate persons from there premises without fire service intervention. 

But there is no such legal responsibility for the managers to maintain a system to check that after an AFA system has been activated, there is a fire, prior to calling 999 and so many are happy for the fire service to make the decision, like a tick box/responsibility shifting exercise 

I hate any management system where it prioritises  'process' over 'people' - and this is certainly the case in many businesses where the fire service is called automatically - even when they know they are not needed 

Until recently, I was responsible for fire safety in a significant and large building in the capital that had nearly 4,000 devices attached to it's fire alarm system.  Smoke and heat heads, beam detection, VESDA, manual call points  and sprinklers, gas suppression systems. We had actuations weekly - sometimes 4 times a week, but we dealt with them internally and only called the LFB if a fire or some unknown situation had occurred simultaneously to an AFA activation. 

It was in our interest, as we didnt want the LFB turning up, making a fuss and interrupting business by unnecessary evacuations and investigations. Neither did we want to pull appliances away from where they should be. But this type of internal intervention costs a lot of money - especially in supplying regular training to around 50 persons and to some extent, equipment. Its about time these freeloaders who get the LFB to check for free were bought to account 

I once worked in a building where the fire alarm wiring hadn't been properly isolated or insulated or something, and every time we had a heavy rain storm, all the alarms sounded!

After a couple of times the staff refused to go out when they saw it was pouring. We were above a large shopping mall so everyone headed in their through a door. Then the mall people complained about all the people milling about (and shopping), so they stopped people going in there. You then had the ridiculous sight of the security people trying to push nearly 800 people out of their offices into the rain and them pushing back.

As far as I'm aware the fire brigade was never called.

[Matt]

Why are LFB only just going down this route, sure many others did this long ago as part of a national piece of work, I stand to be corrected.  

Be a big shock to some stations when things change, some stations around here go full tours now without moving!

[Vema11]

Did this in GM a few years ago. 
We only respond to commercial AFAs after business hours. 5pm -9am 

we still respond to residential AFAs anytime but having a large city centre area we still turn out often to AFAs. Ive Still not had a tour where we haven’t turned a wheel. I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse if this was a regular occurrence.