Fire Alarm Systems

The role of fire safety systems begins once a fire is about to occur or has already occurred. Then, the question to be asked is - How do you detect fire early enough to enable evacuation for life safety? Early detection is the key to saving life and property.

When fire spreads in a building , the people are physically affected by inhaling hot gas or toxic gases, by heat and by the fire itself The people will need to be evacuated and the fire will have to be suppressed very fast to minimize damage to life and property. Detection, evacuation and suppression are therefore the  three pillars of life safety  

Three factors are necessary to cause fire, which we call the fire triangle. They are heat, oxygen and fuel. Heat can generate fire, but for fire to spread it needs oxygen and fuel. Even if one of the three factors are absent, fire won’t occur. In a modern building, it is difficult to remove the fuel because combustible substances like wood and electrical cables are used in plenty. So we have to work on the other two factors so as to reduce the possibilities of fire. For instance, if level of oxygen is less than 12% fire will not spread. Human beings can breathe with 12% oxygen. So oxygen supply can be controlled to reduce the spread of fire.

In order that detection takes place at an early stage and evacuation happens in time , an alarm is to be generated .  Thus, the objectives of a fire detection system is the timely detection of fire, alarm generation , initiating a process to prevent spread of fire and evacuation.