West Yorkshire fire service

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (WYFRS) is set to change its attendance procedure to unconfirmed automatic fire alarms (AFAs) in commercial properties.

Although well-maintained AFAs cause very few problems to the service, false alarms generated by the devices tie up critical resources that are then unavailable to attend real emergencies.

In order to reduce the number of unwanted fire alarms from automatic fire detection systems, WYFRS is set to trial a new attendance strategy to AFAs in commercial buildings.

From 1st December, the fire service will no longer attend any unconfirmed AFA in a commercial building between 8am and 7pm, while a single pump will be sent to the incident from 7pm until 8am.

However, WYFRS confirmed that it will continue to attend unconfirmed AFAs at commercial sleeping premises such as hospitals, educational premises, Control of major accident hazards sites and heritage sites.

This change in attendance does not affect domestic housing, with the service confirming it will respond to AFA calls made from private houses.