Fire Alarm Systems

By Steven Pollio, Fire Chief

My office is always receiving phone calls from residents reporting that their commercial or residential building’s fire alarm systems are sounding. Like everything else in the world, these fire alarm systems have over the years become more complicated. The biggest issue is that most residents don’t know what to do if they hear their fire alarm making noise.  

First, I would like to discuss how fire alarm systems work. Let me start by saying that when we talk about “fire alarm systems”, we are NOT referring to “smoke detectors” that are located within our single family homes or apartment dwelling units. Fire alarm systems are typically installed in multi-residential apartment buildings (in the common areas) or commercial buildings. These systems are designed to alert occupants within the building of a fire emergency. The systems often include manually operated pull stations that allow occupants the ability to initiate the alarm in order to warn other occupants.

Some of these systems have smoke detectors or heat detectors located in common areas of the building that will sense smoke and heat, and cause the alarm horns to sound, thus alerting the occupants. Fire sprinkler systems if present, will also cause the fire alarm to sound if the fire sprinkler system is activated. In most cases, these fire alarm systems are referred to as “local alarms”, meaning that that they are for occupant notification and are NOT connected to a central monitoring station or the fire department. Therefore, it is important to understand that if the alarm horns and strobe lights are activated, you will need to call 911 to report the alarm. I can’t tell you how many times in my career I have had residents tell me that “it took 30 minutes for the fire department to arrive”. When I review the 911 tapes, I find that it only took the fire department six minutes to arrive, but in fact the fire alarm rang for twenty-four minutes before someone decided to call 911. Please don’t assume that the alarm is connected to a monitoring station or that someone else has called 911.

Some apartment buildings are equipped with small fire alarm horns located within the dwelling units. These “mini sounders” are designed to deliver additional sound audibility to the occupants. In some cases residents have disconnected their “mini-sounders” so that they are not bothered by the fire alarm activations. Disconnecting the “mini-sounders” is illegal and will cause the entire fire alarm panel to go into a “trouble-mode” or “fault condition”, and requiring an expensive service repair call.

One other condition that occurs frequently is a high pitched beeping noise coming from the fire alarm panel itself. In this situation, the fire alarm horns and strobe lights are not activated. The high pitched beeping noise is designed to notify the occupants that some portion of the fire alarm system is not operational. If you hear this beeping noise, you should contact property maintenance, or management, who can contact the fire alarm repair company.

State Statutes require fire department to respond to all fire alarm activations and to complete investigation reports. These investigations allow the fire department to enforce maintenance requirements which reduce the number of false alarms. I should mention that it is illegal for anyone, including the owners of fire alarm systems to silence or reset a fire alarm system without authorization of the fire department. 

 In summary, please call 911 if you hear the fire alarm horns and see that the strobe lights are going off. Call property management or maintenance if you hear a high pitched beeping noise coming from the fire alarm panel. And as always, please feel free to contact your Coconut Creek Fire Administrative Offices at 954 973-6706 with any questions or if you need any information. Have a safe month!