Consultation on proposals to reduce the number of false alarms from automatic fire alarms systems

This consultation is primarily aimed at Oxfordshire businesses, non-profit and local/central government organisations only

What do we want to know?

We want to hear your views about our proposals to reduce the number of false alarms from automatic fire alarm systems that we attend. We are asking your views on options that have been developed that would involve us not attending automatic fire alarm activations in certain buildings. In addition, we would like to gather your feedback about what times of the day we should not be attending fire alarms in those buildings.

By implementing these measures, we have calculated the amount of time and resource that would be saved, increasing capacity for valuable work such as preventing fires and community safety activities, and meaning more fire engines would be available for genuine emergencies.

In Oxfordshire, around 99 per cent of automatic fire alarm activations that firefighters attend are false alarms.

What are the proposals and what does it mean for you?

For all calls to automatic fire alarm activations that we receive, we would apply a policy of ‘call challenge’ to obtain accurate information from the caller (e.g. building occupier, member of the public, alarm receiving centre) about the sort of building it is and what has caused the alarm to operate. The information gathered will then allow the fire control operator to decide if a fire engine should be sent to the building or not. 

Proposals are:

We have categorised different types of buildings into high, medium and low risk (please read our consultation document for more information) and developed three options for you to consider, which present slightly different approaches to when we would apply call challenge. Each has a different estimated impact on how much it will reduce the number of false alarms that we attend 

Our proposals include either: 

For high risk buildings such as private homes, hospitals, care homes, and hotels (locations where there is overnight sleeping accommodation) we are proposing that we would continue to send a fire engine to automatic fire alarm activations unless the building occupiers confirm to us that it is a false alarm.

Have your say

Please read the proposals (available under ‘Consultation documents’) and fill in our online survey by clicking the ‘TAKE SURVEY’ button below. The survey will close on 13 May 2024.

Your responses will help highlight any changes that may need to be made to the proposal before it is formally adopted.