School Building Spring 2019

Reducing false fire alarms in education establishments
Disrupting vital teaching, interfering with crucial exams and heaping further pressure on an already strained fire service,
false fire alarms remain a huge concern within the education industry but with the BSI now recommending protective
covers for all manual call points, will we see a decline in malicious activations?
In the 2017 revision to the BS5839-1:2017 the British Standard Institute has
recommended, in section 20.2 b) of the update, that: “All MCPs should be
fitted with a protective cover, which is moved to gain access to the
frangible elements.”
The changes came after the Fire Industry Association’s Fire Detection & Alarm
Council presented their own recommendations for changes to BS5839-1:2017
to the BSI following findings showing that a shocking 44% of Fire and Rescue
callout turn out to be false alarms. (Source: FIA website, 2017)
Safety Technology International Managing Director, Steve Hunt believes that
the update to the British Standard will aid the decline in false fire alarms
throughout the country.
He said: “The update to the British Standard strongly reinforces the work Safety
Technology have been doing for over three decades. Our protective covers are
designed to prevent false fire alarms and they are effective at doing so.”
All manual call points that are placed in vulnerable areas and are prone to false
activations should now be protected, without the need to consult your fire
safety officers. Sadly schools and other education establishments like Colleges
and Universities are particularly vulnerable to false fire alarms – disrupting vital
teaching time and interrupting crucial exams.
Whilst some false activations are caused by accidents; whether it be from a
bouncing ball in the sports hall or a flailing arm in a bustling corridor, a much
more unfortunate and common cause for false firm alarms in schools is
malicious activation. With some pupils determined to avoid lessons,
maliciously pressing a manual call point is an easy way to force their teachers
and fellow pupils to evacuate classrooms and assemble outside in the
playground.
One newspaper even reported that a school in Scotland had its fire alarm maliciously activated 15 times in two months interfering with
important exams on consecutive days (Source: Daily Record, 2016). Not only are these hoax call-outs detrimental to pupils education but
there are also both human and financial costs attached to false fire alarms.
It is estimated that false alarms cost the UK in excess of £1 billion a year (Source: FIA), but apart from the waste of resources false alarms
detract the attention of fire services away from real fire incidents.
STI supply a range of protective covers, from integral covers to sounder models; there are variations to suit all applications. These covers
are specifically designed to prevent false alarms whether accidental or malicious. In fact, the first ever STI product came directly at the
request of a high school principal in the United States who had a problem with false fire alarms. STI founder Jack Taylor used his expertise
in security systems to invent the original Stopper call point protector.
Today, 35 years on STI has hundreds of innovative products that help make education establishments around the world safe, smart and
secure.
www.sti-emea.com
Mak
ki ing a little
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Jonathon n Hun
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er Hill,
Sec
tor Manager - Educat
tion
www.sav-systems.comw
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