Keeping Communities Safe: London Fire Brigade introduces new policy which aims to reduce attendance at false alarms

London Fire Brigade has changed its approach to how it responds to automatic fire alarms. Starting from today (29 October), the Brigade will stop attending automatic fire alarms in most non-residential buildings, such as office blocks or industrial estates, during daytime hours - unless a call is also received from a person reporting a fire.

The change will allow firefighters to spend more time and resources on other priorities, such as working on fire prevention with local communities and increased operational training. The Brigade will continue to always respond to all automatic fire alarms in residential buildings and in schools, nurseries, hospitals, care homes, listed heritage sites and other exempt premises*.

The new policy will only apply between the hours of 7am and 8.30pm. Outside of these hours, the Brigade will attend all automatic fire alarms in any building.

The changes are being introduced in London following a public consultation held last year with members of the public, businesses, partners, firefighters and other Brigade staff.

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Following the announcement in May about the change in its policy, the Brigade has engaged with stakeholders, businesses, community groups and Londoners to ensure they understand what these changes mean for them, what they need to do to prepare and how to ensure they can keep their buildings, and the people they are responsible for, safe.

This includes an online webinar which was held in August and attended by more than 100 people from across 60 groups, including transport bodies, councils, and retailers. Attendees were given an opportunity to learn how the change in policy impacts on their organisation and to ask any questions. Additionally, the Brigade has worked closely with its Community Forum members as well as stakeholders and businesses.

Assistant Commissioner for Prevention and Protection, Craig Carter, said: "Following a period of extensive engagement with our communities and stakeholders, we are now ready to roll out this new policy.

"We are here to keep London's communities safe, and we want to do this as effectively as possible. We will always attend an emergency and will continue to attend an alarm at any premises where people sleep - such as homes, hotels and prisons.

"As outlined in our Community Risk Management Plan, reducing our attendance at false alarms will give firefighters more time to focus on protection and prevention activity, such as visiting our most vulnerable residents and communities, fire safety checks, as well as operational training."

Why are we implementing this policy?

False alarms make up 40 per cent of the calls the Brigade receives. Between April 2023 and March 2024, the Brigade attended around 52,000 false alarms generated by automatic fire alarms. Less than 1 per cent of automatic fire alarms signal genuine fires - the remaining 99 per cent are false alarms, placing an unnecessary burden on the Brigade's resources. Almost all other UK fire and rescue services have introduced policies that aim to reduce attendance at false alarms and the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services support efforts that reduce false alarm attendances.

The time spent attending these false alarms will be used instead to improve the availability of operational training time for firefighters, as well as freeing up more time to deliver fire prevention and fire safety in local communities.

Why do false alarms occur?

There are several reasons. Common causes include poor alarm design or maintenance, dust inside detectors, or steam. It is imperative that automatic alarm systems are correctly managed and maintained to minimise false alarms, as well as ensuring that staff in businesses are suitably trained to understand their responsibilities under fire safety law. Recurring false alarms can often be resolved quickly and easily. The Brigade is urging businesses who experience recurring false alarms to investigate each occurrence in order to find the cause, including contacting the alarm system company.