Recently, the NFPA 72, a publication released by the National Fire Protection Association that details guidelines for national fire alarms and signaling code, introduced a new requirement for businesses and their fire protection systems.
This new rule stipulates that businesses install what’s known as a remote fire monitoring system, which, in the case that you and your employees are away from the business premises, your building will still constantly be monitored in the case of fire. With the advent of new technologies that have made safe, reliable remote monitoring possible, the NFPA has seen fit to issue remote fire monitoring as a new standard in the world of fire protection.
Here, we’ll walk you through this new requirement, and go into detail on what exactly it means for you.
What Does Remote Fire Monitoring Entail?
Under the NFPA’s new guidelines, all buildings and businesses of a certain size are required to submit their fire protection system’s status to a central monitoring center for observation. From this monitoring center, analysts will be able to see the status of your building and quickly dispatch a response team in the case of a fire on site.
This has the double-effect of keeping your building and property safe and serving as a relief to the often-overstretched fire departments of a given locality.
This does not mean that you need to constantly watch your own property from afar using your remote fire monitoring system – the data collected from your monitoring system will be automatically sent to the professional analysts at your assigned fire monitoring center.
Remote fire monitoring does not mean constant video surveillance of your property – only certain readings important to fire safety will be submitted to the monitoring center. Said centers are staffed 24 hours a day, and going forward, will be on the front lines of fire safety.
What Does This Mean For Me?
This, for building owners, means that it will soon become necessary to install a module to your existing fire protection system, which allows for the readings from said system to be submitted remotely to the aforementioned monitoring centers.
Installation of this module is the responsibility of the building owner, as is the eventual inspection, maintenance, and testing. It is not the responsibility of the owner to provide these readings manually to the monitoring center, only for the owner to ensure that the systems that send said readings are in proper working order.
If you’re a building owner looking for a fire protection partner, look no further than Complete Fire. As experts in the fire protection industry for over 30 years, no one else in the greater Denver area is more prepared to get your building up to code than we are. Give us a call or get in touch with us online today.
