If a crew are responding to a fire alarm and a call comes through that is okay are the still required by law to attend and see it for themselves it is safe?
Am asking this cause was thinking what if an arsonist rang said all is fine.
If the security company rings back and says its all fine, we still respond to investigate. Maybe not P1 though. Its all about covering your backside.
PF you answered your own question
With the last line
general practice is to downgrade to priority two.... but continue to investigate, besides most fire panels require the fire service to reset them, so this service still needs to be provided
It is SAMFS policy that we still respond, but may downgrade to priority two, to inspect FIP's as people have made the mistake of missreading the panel and checking the wrong circuits and finding no fire when in fact there has been a fire on another circuit.
There also is stickers on the FIP'S telling people to basically leave them alone until we get there to check them, as circuits being reset prior to our arrival make it difficult to find which detector had activated.
I think the CFS would have maybe a similar policy
Regards, Mat
I have to say dont down grade keep going as P1,why beacuse there have been a number of cases were the place has called the fire brigdae and said its all clear crew have downgraded to a P2 only to arrive and have found a fire in the roof going well.... It does not matter if they call and say its a false alarm you still have to attend and reset the panel and fill in the site log book.You will also have to record what area alarm was in and if it keeps happening in that area well they have a problem that needs to be fixed...
And if we're talking hospitals for argument sake, since when have Doctors, Nurses, Office staff etc had formal fire service training to have the authority to downgrade fire services response. It's a bit like if us firies went to a MVA and started pronouncing people dead!!
I wouldn't go that far mengcfs... just about everyone is capable of seeing if there is fire or not... In most cases, the residents / staff know why the alarm has activated (Burnt food, contractors doing work etc...) and hence know its a false alarm.
Saying that the general public aren't capable of seeing if their house is on fire is the same as saying every time you fall over, you should call an ambulance, because you aren't trained to tell if you've broken any bones...
OK, point taken, but what i am trying to say is that if the bells drop but there is no apparent cause, staff should not be ringing up saying it a false alarm just because they can't see any flames or smoke. It still needs to be investigated. In our area (just speaking for myself here) we have had instances where the above has occured. Of course we say that we are responding anyway because we have to reset the alarm. Now we have certain premises educated and everybody knows the protocol (from both sides) as to what needs to happen.
Hey mate, whats this warm orangey stuff with a black cloud like substance coming out?
I dunno, havent done my formal fire training either.
:-P
People ring up and call it a false alarm when there is no apparent cause?
We've only had people call us and inform us that its false when its *obviously* false, eg: burnt food/contractors
Sure, no worries mengcfs. I thought you meant they couldn't tell at all, but i totally agree, particularly with sensors in the ceiling space... It makes it even worse when they re-set the alarm before you arrive!
i am sick of brigades being paged to a fixed alarm that i look after but they do not role an appliances but instead call up and ask the staff if its a real call...since when is a fixed alarm not a real job? time brigades looked at the SOPS and followed them,sooner or later it will be a working job and it will be there head/body in court not the CFS.......
QuoteIt makes it even worse when they re-set the alarm before you arrive!
Yes, have had that trouble before. Depends on the panel, but a fix we found was that we got maintenance to drill holes thru te perspex cover on the door. That way all the staff have to do is stick a pen thru the hole which is lined up with the isolate button. That way there is no need for them to open the door and reset the system but they can still stop the bells and whistles, and we still know which area we need check.
Quote from: rescue5271 on June 06, 2006, 07:18:46 PM
i am sick of brigades being paged to a fixed alarm that i look after but they do not role an appliances but instead call up and ask the staff if its a real call...since when is a fixed alarm not a real job? time brigades looked at the SOPS and followed them,sooner or later it will be a working job and it will be there head/body in court not the CFS.......
I know of a couple of brigades around here that actually the captain responds straight to the alarm and the rest go to the truck. I guess in a way its a good thing but in others maybe not.
But all fixed alarms in the Gambier CFS area (Except Tarpeena) are dual responsed with MFS anyway so there is always an appliance on its way.
Blinky I could not agree more.
If your not sure send all trucks priority one and one arrival give a sitrep and a possible down grade. Unless you are responding to a line fault you should always head out P1 and treat everything as real. Some of the biggest fires in SA have been fire alarms to start with (Mitcham Shopping Centre), after all that is why these systems are put in place.
If these rogue captains want to risk the lives of the community they are looking after be my guest, but I often wonder if you told these premises that your paying all this money to have a monitored fire alarm just to get Joe blogg captain rock up by himself. They expect a fire appliance and professional firefighters to deal with it....
How much do they pay for us to monitor their alarms? I don't think I've ever seen money from the premises we monitor... :(
i heard we're gonna start fining people for carelessly setting off their alarms
We do, 3xcalls to the same alarm, same sensor in x period of time. So, its really not harsh.
We've had 14 calls to the same alarm this year and only two were justified calls.
They now get a bill for $250 +gst for any unjustified calls.
I know it's been mentioned before on here about billing people but it stops them being careless and broken alarms get fixed a lot quicker now...
CFS does not have the power to charge for fire alarm calls,once all alarms are cut over to the firemon system all billing will be done by SAFECOM at a rate of $150:00 per call.the site is allowed 3x free calls before they are billed with in a 60 day period.......
does this mean you have some competition with selling your alarms Bill or do you still sell them but hook them up through the CFS?
Quote from: rescue5271 on June 08, 2006, 04:35:46 PM
CFS does not have the power to charge for fire alarm calls,once all alarms are cut over to the firemon system all billing will be done by SAFECOM at a rate of $150:00 per call.the site is allowed 3x free calls before they are billed with in a 60 day period.......
How does that work, aren't SAFECOM and the CFS the same organisation? Or do you mean CFS brigades can't charge?
I heard that the new act (SAFECOM act) allows us to charge for calls...? :?
hmmm... no idea...
but im guessing since all alarms are to be monitored by CFS as a state level, then the alarms will be charged at a state level... which in turn would answer you CFS_Firey, that yes; under the fire and emergency services act we could charge for alarm calls... and they are it would seem, if everyone is correct...
camo; i shouldnt think it would matter who fits/supplies the alarm, they are all going to be monitored from the one place though...
Does this apply to private alarm calls as well, or just alarms monitored by the fire service?
i dunno...
im pretty sure though, that the CFS actually provides the service (alarm monitoring) to fixed alarms, per a written agreement that would stipulate something like payment for false alarms...
however with a private alarm; they are monitored by a security company that would have that agreement between the resident and themselves... possibly cutting us out of any payment, so in reality, the resident wouldnt have to pay as they hadnt 'requested' the fire service as such... the security company had...?
At the moment CFS brigades monitor fire alarms at their station,from end of July 2006 you will see a cut over from the station to the SOCC.staff at SOCC will monitor all fixed alarms and will turn out brigade's as per brigade/group plan. Once the alarms are cut over at a cost of $2500:00 per alarm,then the client will be invoiced for a monitoring fee per year as well as call outs that are false alarms. A client can have 3 false alarms in 60 days before they get a account from safecom for $150:00 per call,at the present CFS does not have the power to invoice anyone for calls outs till it goes throu the house...
MFS have the power to charge for call outs at the moment,so the new cut over will be a good thing but for some brigades it will be the end of income as such...All in all the new system has been doing well and there have been a few little hicups but these have been fixed...
as for private fire alarms that a security company looks after well I have not seen any paperwork on these yet but I would say that safecom will keep a good eye on it and send out accounts....
It's a pity that SAFECOM will do the billing as the Brigade/Group may attend a large number of falsies to a certain place yet may never see any extra funding forwarded to them????
Personally i wouldn't like to see more money go to groups that don't need it... oooh i've stirred one up now :evil:
Are you saying Mt Barker should get all the money from their many fixed alarms? :P
I believe the are a few interesting points when activity based funding is up and running properly.....
I thought because it was our core "business" groups could charge for fixed/false alarms. At least that is what our Region was told by our BSO.
It's our group that actually charges but because our brigade does the high majority of alarms in our group we do see the benefits of the money....
Considering in the last 2 months we've got an extra couple of thousand dollars it really helps a lot because our group is pretty badly under funded. :|
It is only Group that can charge anyway, not Brigades. The Group holds the ABN, Brigades do not have one. Good to see the Group is looking after you financially!!
Guys I would check first before you do that,so contact the region and get the word from them....
I am well aware of two groups/brigades who are very upset about the new system as they will be lost with out the extra income....
aaaaaaaaah well... IMO its the service that should get the money, not the particular brigades that attend... HOWEVER - the money should be used to benefit the vollunteers (statewide)...
Wont matter to my brigade as MFS monitor the fixed alarms so i suppose they miss out then which isnt such a bad thing. :-D
The brigade that attend should get the money. Why should they give all the brigades around them a cut when they don't get out of bed at 3am to go the alarm. Mt Barker i believe charge $150.00 a truck not call like SAFECOM. That is cheap compared to being in MFS area.
Yes MFS sure know how much to charge.....
After a quick test of a smoke machine inside the station, where one of our members.. (NOT CFS_Firey, not at all, no way never) had assured the rest of us that "The detecor is a thermal one", our security company rang and told us it would be a fee of $1300 to turn out the fire service. You have to wonder where all that money goes...
If someone saying "I think the detectors in here are thermal aren't they?" Classifies as being assured, then you might have a few problems in life Toast ;)
But then again, you could always bolt through the back door when the alarm goes off.... (Would you do that? never, of course not, I don't think so ):P
Quote from: Toast on June 11, 2006, 12:40:56 PM
our security company rang and told us it would be a fee of $1300 to turn out the fire service. You have to wonder where all that money goes...
"But we are the blooody fire service!"
LOL,LOL,LOL
Jeez.. Community is in safe hands I see.... :-P
That's right strikeathird "Don't worry Sir, we are experienced with private alarms... we can even set them off!"
;)
we are the fire service?
that's not what cfs management think, we are the bush fire brigade, in times of bushfire we form....urban responsibilities yeah right.