printer friendly version

Kentec reduces false alarms

False fire alarms are a nuisance at the best of times, in a hospital they can be fatal.

A new fire system designed to tackle a chronic false alarm problem at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire has been hailed a resounding success with an 80% drop in incidents in its first year.

Fire systems specialists Pyrotec Systems, appointed for the design, installation and maintenance of this massive private finance initiative (PFI) funded re-development, chose an open protocol system that interfaces with Kentec Syncro AS control panels, as it offers both versatility and a very high level of intelligence, allowing more accurate interrogation and interpretation of possible fire events within the hospital.

This open protocol system consists of 28 Kentec panels and 5000 Hochiki devices, allowing seamless integration to a building management system that provides fire data intelligence for fire alarm management at many levels, with clarity of zone identification as a major feature of the system and provision for future expansion of the PFI development.

Working with the local NHS Trust, and the hospital’s fire safety adviser Ray Clark, Pyrotec developed a fire safety system that enables the investigation of the cause of an alarm signal, on the activation of one smoke detector, that either confirms or cancels the 999 call, guaranteeing a 999 call is made in the event of a real fire. However, in the event of a heat detector activating, more than one smoke detector activating or a break glass call point being activated, then the fire and rescue service is summoned immediately.

Share this article:

Further reading: