Our Automatic Fire Alarm policy (AFA) doesn’t apply to all buildings.
If your building is not exempt
If the building you’re responsible for is not on the exemption list, you’ll need to do the following:
- Review your Fire Risk Assessment and make sure it’s up to date.
- Ensure that, if an Automatic Fire Alarm (AFA) is triggered between 7am and 8.30pm someone can confirm whether there is a fire in your premises before calling 999.
Remember, we will still respond to automatic fire alarm activations between 8.30pm and 7am, even if a fire has not been confirmed.
If your building is exempt
If you’re a Responsible Person for an exempt building, you’ll need to do the following:
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Make sure the person calling 999 knows the building is exempt and can tell the Control Room operator
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Ensure anyone responsible for reporting fire alarms understands the exemption arrangements and does not assume a response will be sent without providing the necessary information
How can I investigate a fire safely?
No one should put themselves at risk to investigate a fire alarm.
Your fire risk assessment and emergency procedures should explain how alarms will be investigated safely.
Our guidance on how to investigate a fire safely is available in our updated Guidance Note 54 (PDF, 135KB), where you'll also find information on how to reduce unwanted fire signals and false alarms.
If there are clear signs of fire, such as:
- flames
- smoke
- the smell of burning
we will send a response.
A fire alarm activation on its own does not confirm there is a fire. If it is safe to do so, the cause of the alarm should be investigated and considered alongside any other signs of fire.
Multiple detectors
We're sometimes asked if multiple detectors are activated (including heat detectors and/or manual call points) would this be considered a confirmed fire?
The majority of AFA calls that we receive do not include that type of information and 99% of the AFAs that we attend are false alarms, not fires.
However, our Control officers are good at identifying calls and recognising when calls are a result of automatic alarms rather than confirmed fire calls. We will continue to attend all confirmed fires.
Sprinkler flow activations
If a sprinkler flow switch activates we would consider this a confirmed fire and would attend.
Dangerous substances
The exemption policy includes high-risk sites that store significant quantities of dangerous substances, such as COMAH sites.
These sites are already regulated, so London Fire Brigade is aware of the substances stored and their locations. Any new site storing these substances will go through a regulatory process, and London Fire Brigade will be notified as part of that process.