United Kingdom (UK) Fire Industry News

With temperatures hitting highs of over 25°C in Cambridgeshire this week, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) would like to remind residents of important outdoor fire safety and water safety advice. They tend to see an increase in calls to fires during spells of hot weather. This does result in the crews spending significant time at incidents that could be avoided, which is why they are urging residents across the county to follow the simple tips to help avoid unnecessary incident...

Anglia Fire Protection is looking at electrical fires and how to reduce the risk of them occurring in homes. One of the most common causes of fire in the home is electrical goods. From white goods to faulty chargers, electrical items are the number 4 risk of fire in the home. Here are some top tips to help reduce that risk. Anglia Fire Protection offers key pointers on how to avoid electrical fires at homes: Residents should make sure that all electrical appliances have a British or Europea...

Yesterday, England moved to the final stage of easing the Covid-19 restrictions. Thankfully, many business premises are already back up and running following the gradual lifting of the restrictions since February. But with many employees still working from home and homeworking becoming more readily accepted by employers, many offices and business premises will remain unoccupied – despite yesterday’s announcement. Vehicle-Borne attacks Vacant properties are an easy target for squat...

Homes and buildings require the installation of ventilation systems to improve air quality, reduce smoke levels, and moderate internal temperatures. Stale air is removed to allow fresh air to enter, while also removing excessive moisture to reduce condensation dampness. Passive fire products offer effective protection against ventilation systems at high risk of causing fires. Values of ventilation protection Multi-storey buildings are at particular risk of fire damage due to complex ventilati...

Shoes are a necessity. They have a very important purpose to serve in daily life: provide comfort to feet, while protecting them from outside elements, especially while working amidst hazardous working conditions. And those flashy sports shoes or the casual pair of short or long boots can’t offer the required features.  Safety shoes Safety shoes are specially designed to protect the wearer’s feet from all kinds of workplace hazards '25% of disability applications worldwide a...

Online supermarket - Ocado has suffered another robot fire at one of its fulfilment centers, impacting deliveries across south east England. The fire on 16 July was caused by three robots colliding on the grid that controls the fulfilment of shopping orders at the technology firm. Fifteen fire engines The fulfilment centre processes over 150,000 orders a week for the joint venture between Ocado and Marks and Spencer. More than 1,000 robots move around the grid, collecting food from crates and...

Dame Judith Hackitt commented in her report, Building a Safer Future – Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety (May 2018) that there is a, “lack of a coherent approach to competence levels and experience required - or professional qualifications where these may be necessary – and how these qualifications and experience should be evidenced so that they are clearly understood by all those operating within the system.” It was also noted in the same report...

As much as Hollywood makes out how dangerous working on an oil rig can be, it’s surprisingly true. Major Hollywood films, such as Deepwater Horizon, tell the events of the dangers that can happen while working on oil rigs, which are situated in the middle of the ocean. Furthermore, without the correct training provided or the workwear, many oil rig workers’ lives can be at risk, when carrying out their tasks. In this article, Granite Workwear looks at the type of workwear that is re...

Two seven-story residential apartment buildings in the cultural and social hot-spot of Cardiff Bay are now protected by evacuation alert systems from UK manufacturer, Advanced. The EvacGo panels have been installed to meet the criteria set out in the BS 8629 Code of Practice for the design, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of evacuation alert systems for use by fire and rescue services in England and Wales. Audible warning in emergencies Situated in Cardiff Bay’s Tiger Quay...

The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) Annual Municipal Fire school has been happening for 92 years. Ninety-two years of training firefighters across the state on the largest live-burn fire props in the world. But why would students want to come to this facility in the heat of Texas in the middle of July? And why come not just to this one week but also to an Industrial Fire School that has taken place for 59 years? Fire service knowledge Donny Boggs, a 30-year veteran instruct...

Euralarm’s Services Section reports an important step forward for service providers and end-users of remote services: the very positive vote on the EN 50710, Requirements for the provision of secure remote services for fire safety systems and security systems. The successful vote is the icing on the cake of the section’s efforts to guarantee more certainty for a future in which remote services play an increasingly important role. Jon Könz, Chair of Euralarm’s Services Sec...

Fire and rescue services received money from the Housing Ministry to pay for work to review risks on residential buildings higher than 18 meters. The £6 million grant helped services like South Yorkshire to employ specialist staff to identify and review buildings in their area. South Yorkshire received £126,000 from the grant as part of the Building Risk Review program. Initially, fire and rescue services focused on identifying buildings with ACM cladding. The current phase of work...

The Association for Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP) has refreshed its branding to promote a cleaner and more simple design and to improve readability and consistency, as well as offering a more modern and versatile logo. New logo features  While maintaining the ASFP’s iconic flames motif, the new logo features the flames emerging from the ASFP name. The font has also been updated to improve legibility and ensure readers quickly gain a clear understanding of the logo with a single...

After a few years of painstaking R&D, Jo Bird announces the launch of the first IP66 rated cabinet. The Firebird range was already setting the standard with the excellent IP56 rating but following the principles of Kaizen, the R&D team was not prepared to rest on their laurels. The prototype cabinets have gone through extensive testing for both dust and water ingress which was carried out by the TUV Sud testing house. JB80 fire hose cabinet The JB80 fire hose cabinet is designed to co...

Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service (MFRS) is celebrating after being commended by Ofsted Inspectors for producing some of the best and most highly skilled firefighters in the country.  The education watchdog visited MFRS’ Training & Development Academy (TDA) in June as part of a monitoring visit. In a report published this week, inspectors said the Service had made “significant progress” in all areas, the highest judgment a provider can receive. Firefighter apprent...

Taking place at Birmingham’s NEC on 7-9 September, the eagerly-awaited show will feature free CPD-accredited educational seminars, 120+ exhibitors, and the fire industry’s latest products, technology, and solutions. CAST Detectors & ENVISION C-TEC be showcasing CAST, its revolutionary new own-protocol fire alarm, and detection system, ENVISION, its futuristic new IoT Cloud-based fire alarm remote access, service and site management software package, and Hush, its innovative new...

High-rise buildings on an inspection list are not inherently unsafe say fire officers, as they report good progress in their mission to visit every high-rise residential block in South Yorkshire. South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (SYFR) has published the list of high-rise residential buildings forming part of its ‘Building Risk Review’ project.  The list includes buildings identified by the central government plus extra buildings identified by the SYFR- which made the deci...

A natural part of business is allocating and reallocating investments and resources into various areas. And, often, each department is asked to achieve more with less, pioneering to difficult decisions in order to achieve business goals. One key area where there can’t be any compromise is protecting workers from accidents, injuries, and illnesses while they’re on the job. When creating a safety plan for lone workers, companies often need to broaden their definition of what a lone wo...

The Welsh Government announced it will fund fire safety surveys for residential buildings over 11 meters to identify fire safety defects and measures to make them safe. building remediation Minister for Climate Change, Julie James confirmed the costs would come from the Welsh Building Safety Fund. She said, “It is critically important that we are able to understand the true scale of the problem in order to properly address it.” Leaseholders have not borne the costs of remediating...

G2 is very proud to announce that Nichola Allan was voted in as Executive Chairperson of the SAQCC Fire. Nichola has been actively involved in the Detection and Gas sub-committee from its beginnings in 2011, as a member, treasurer and chairperson. She has been directly involved in making fire detection and gas training available throughout the country. Her aim as executive chair is to make training further available and SAQA certified, up lifting the industry and its technicians.

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited announced that the company is working with Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC), a business unit of Pratt & Whitney, to integrate hybrid-electric technology into a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-100 flight demonstrator. The flight demonstrator will include an advanced electric motor and controller from Collins Aerospace. As announced by P&WC, the hybrid-electric propulsion technology and flight demonstrator program is part of a CAD 163M investment, s...

Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority (MFRA), part of the Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service (MFRS), has begun a 12-week consultation on proposed changes, to emergency response cover in Aintree and Croxteth, following initial approval to create a new superstation and training center. The consultation will run from 15th July to 7th October 2021. Integrated Risk Management Plan The plans were outlined in a recent consultation on the innovative Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) for 2021-2...

While installing a fire alarm system in the building, the question, however, is which approach should one take? Should one go with the simple conventional fire alarm system? Or the more intelligent addressable fire alarm system? In this article, Protec discusses the pros and cons of both types of systems in the hope of assisting with the best method for one and their project. Conventional Fire Alarm System Let’s start with the simplest of the two systems. A conventional fire alarm system...

The new PP-250 can be used as a stand-alone paging amplifier or to add 250-Watts of power to existing paging systems. “The PP-250 amp is an economical paging solution both financially and for its small footprint. A lot of power is packed into that small chassis,” said Paul Speltz, Senior Engineer, Viking Electronics. Paging amplifier The PP-250 is a rack-mounted paging amplifier that provides 250 Watts of paging power. The unit is compatible with both 25V and 70V paging speakers....

Most buildings have at least one detector which is hard to access. Now, with a greater focus on 100% testing, more of these detectors are being tested with our Scorpion solution. In recent months there has been a significant rise in enquiries from both installers and facilities managers looking at ways to test hard-to-access detectors. As a result, installations of Scorpion have been confirmed in; the UK, Germany, Sweden, and the Middle East and, with more in the pipeline, it appears the challe...

In focus contains contributions from the four existing Police Fire and Crime Commissioners and two PCC candidates looking to take on fire. Since the PCC elections in May this year, the number of Conservative PCCs has expanded to 30 and they are now far in the majority across England. Prior to the May elections, the Home Office published the first part of a review into PCCs and made it clear they wanted to expand the model across the country. The much-trailed Fire White Paper will cont...

UL is investing in the installation of fire-resistance test furnaces at the FPA’s test laboratory. As part of the collaboration, tests for fire resistance, which form the basis of UK Regulations and support third-party product certification, will be processed quickly and effectively.  Negotiations and construction planning for the new laboratory facility have commenced, with the new lab due to open in early 2022. Author's quote FPA Managing Director, Jonathan O’Neill OBE said...

Johnson Controls, the globally renowned company for smart, healthy and sustainable building solutions, has launched the Johnson Controls Community College Partnership Program. As part of the program, Johnson Controls will give US$ 15 million, over the next five years, to support academic scholarships at non-profit community colleges. community college Program Starting in the 2021‒2022 academic year, Johnson Controls’ program will endow a total of US$ 1 million to ten community colleges a...

NevadaNano, a pioneer in gas detection sensor technology, announced that Gastronics, Inc, a U.S.-based gas detection manufacturer known for being a pioneer in wireless gas detection, has incorporated NevadaNano’s Molecular Property Spectrometer™ (MPS™) technology into its wired and wireless product offering. Wired & Wireless Solutions “Gastronics, a company that is known for its vision in problem-solving solutions, recognized the unique capabilities and value our MP...

After 16 months of nearly constant companionship, many pet parents are preparing to leave their pets at home while they transition back to the workplace. In support of Kidde's annual Pet Fire Safety Month in July, Kidde and celebrity pet trainer Sara Carson (as seen on America's Got Talent) are providing DIY tips to help pet owners train their four-legged families to respond positively to the sound of smoke alarms. Kidde is a part of Carrier Global Corporation, the foremost global pro...