London Fire Brigade to stop attending most automatic alarm callouts in non-residential buildings

London Fire Brigade (LFB) will no longer attend automatic alarms in most non-residential buildings unless they are told a fire is definitely happening.

The organisation said the change will affect properties such as office blocks and industrial estates between 7am and 8.30pm - meaning the Brigade will only attend the affected buildings if a call is also received from a person reporting a fire.

Outside those hours, LFB will still attend all alarms in any building.

The new policy - which was originally announced in May but has come into affect today - has been brought in to allow firefighters to spend more time and resources on other priorities, such as working on fire prevention with local communities and increased operational training.

LFB says 99 per cent of automatic call-outs are false alarms - meaning less than one per cent are genuine fires.

Assistant Commissioner for Prevention and Protection, Craig Carter, said: “Following a period of extensive engagement with our communities and stakeholders, we are now ready to roll out this new policy.

“We are here to keep London’s communities safe, and we want to do this as effectively as possible. We will always attend an emergency and will continue to attend an alarm at any premises where people sleep – such as homes, hotels and prisons.“As outlined in our Community Risk Management Plan, reducing our attendance at false alarms will give firefighters more time to focus on protection and prevention activity, such as visiting our most vulnerable residents and communities, fire safety checks, as well as operational training.”

The Brigade said the change will bring the LFB in line with almost every other UK fire service.

Buildings exempt from the new policy include hospitals, schools and listed heritage sites.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the Brigade attended around 52,000 false alarms generated by automatic fire alarms.

False alarms are commonly caused include poor alarm design or maintenance, dust inside detectors, or steam.

The LFB is urging business to ensure their automatic alarm systems are correctly managed and maintained to minimise false alarms, as well as ensuring that staff in businesses are suitably trained to understand their responsibilities under fire safety law.

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