Page 32 - Security Today, January/February 2022

Reducing False Alarms Failure to take meaningful action may have disastrous consequences
By Jamie Paul
False fire alarms continue to increase in communities throughout the world. As the trend persists, numer- ous jurisdictions have attempted to mitigate the issue, often with less than acceptable results. Nui- sance false fire alarms are a problem for the fire ser- vice, schools, universities, hospitals, nursing homes, stores, hotels, businesses and the public. Most buildings often indicate false fire alarms are among their biggest fire safety challenges.
POSING A PROBLEM
Fire personnel and services nationwide also claim false fire alarms pose a problem for their departments. Their responders are unavailable to assist in real emergency situations, which decreases reaction time and could possibly cost the lives of people needing
real assistance. False calls also put the lives of first responders in danger by creating the possibility of fatalities resulting from traffic accidents while rigs rush to attend fallacious emergencies.
Fire departments responded to 2,889,000 false fire alarms in 2018.* Malicious false calls increased by 22% from 2017, accounting for 171,500 of all false calls.
Those numbers are unacceptable. Failure to take meaningful action could have disastrous consequences for citizens, building owners and security officers. Officials are convinced that the false fire alarm problem may well be the worst enemy facing the fire safety industry today, and make them question whether they need to increase staff and resources to respond and prevent these chronic false alarms.
With fire safety being a main concern in today’s world, it is vital
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FIRE SAFETY
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