With increasing pressures to drive down the incidence of false alarms, the industry is coming up with some clever developments. Here Steve Scorfield of System Sensor Europe unveils a new multi-sensor device called Coptir. In 2004, the last full year for which statistics are available, more than 280,000 false alarms in the UK were attributed to automatic fire systems, causing disruption, unnecessary cost and wasting the Fire and Rescue Service's time. The cost of evacuating an airport, a shopping centre or a major financial institution can run to hundreds of thousands of pounds per minute for time when the building is empty. So the problem has significant and direct financial implications for business owners, in addition to the disruption caused to their staff and customers.
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