Gwangju Fire Department Prevents False Alarms by Blocking Malfunctions in Automated Fire Alarm Systems to Reduce Unnecessary Dispatches

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] The Gwangju Metropolitan Fire Safety Headquarters announced on the 23rd that it will implement safety measures to improve false fire alarms in alarm and automatic fire notification systems by the end of the year.

This initiative was undertaken to prevent the waste of firefighting resources caused by malfunctions of automatic fire notification systems and to enhance fire response capabilities.

The automatic fire notification system is an automatic device that detects fire occurrences through fire detection equipment and automatically notifies the 119 control center of the fire situation. Currently, it is installed in 849 locations within the jurisdiction.

The number of false fire alarm dispatches in the Gwangju area due to non-fire alarms was 1,091 cases in 2015, 1,360 in 2016, 1,584 in 2017, 2,221 in 2018, 2,450 in 2019, 3,250 in 2020, and 1,280 cases as of June 2021.

Based on 2020 data, this represents a 198% increase over five years. The Fire Safety Headquarters analyzed that since the related law was revised in 2015, mandating the installation of smoke detectors in multi-family housing and facilities for the elderly and children, malfunctions caused by various factors such as smoke and dust have increased, leading to a rise in false dispatches each year.

The “Improvement Measures for False Fire Alarms in Alarm and Automatic Fire Notification Systems,” to be implemented by the end of the year, will first operate a private expert technical support group composed of 12 fire safety experts from the Gwangju area.

Private experts, including fire technology specialists and managers, will visit 41 sites with a history of seven or more false dispatches in the past year, donating their expertise by conducting on-site surveys and cause analyses together with fire officials.

The joint private expert technical support group will identify causes of alarm system malfunctions, maintenance status, and the performance of fire safety managers, providing customized technical support for each target to encourage voluntary improvement of defects.

Additionally, a special fire investigation will be conducted on 201 fire targets with a history of 3 to 6 false dispatches in the past year.

Special fire investigation teams, consisting of 31 members in 15 groups from each fire station, will visit and inspect sites to verify the proper operation of alarm and automatic fire notification systems, and gather basic information such as installation environment, product details, and malfunction history.

In particular, a senior officer responsibility system will be operated to manage records and provide continuous safety management consulting.

For 89 fire targets with five or more false dispatches in the past year, senior staff from the respective safety centers will be designated as responsible persons to strengthen education and safety management through at least monthly on-site visits or remote consultations with related parties.

Based on the field data secured from the improvement measures, a Fire Technology Committee will be held in December to discuss institutional and managerial improvements to reduce false fire alarms and overall management improvements for fire facilities such as automatic fire notification systems.

Lee Namsu, Director of the City’s Fire Prevention Division, stated, “We will diligently implement the false fire alarm improvement measures by the end of this year to prevent waste of firefighting resources caused by false dispatches. We will analyze the results of these safety measures to establish follow-up plans and discover institutional improvements to ultimately find solutions to reduce false fire alarms.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.