Fire Safety, Smart Home
What is FireAngel Predict®?
Learn more about our unique technology, FireAngel Predict® and how it can be used to keep loved ones, elderly neighbours or those you care for, safe from fire at home.
Fire Safety, Smart Home
Developed with support from the UK Fire and Rescue Service, FireAngel Predict® runs a unique algorithm with a patented application that spots trends of behaviours logged by smoke and heat alarms, creating a map of fire safety triggers and categorising homes as high or low risk.
Tried, tested and trusted after 10 years of development, Predict® gives visibility of previously hidden trends behind closed doors, such as alarms activating through the night, devices being removed and delays in silencing non‑critical alarms, which are understood to be precursors to serious fires.
Predict® technology is found in FireAngel’s range of Pro Connected smart smoke and heat alarms, with alerts received in the free Connected app. Within the app you can list multiple properties and monitor the fire risk level for each, enabling you to take action if a Predict® risk level moves from low to high – invaluable for those caring for elderly parents or vulnerable neighbours.
As Predict®’s unique algorithm uses real-time data to assess the risk of a future fire, if your family receives an alert that the risk level in your home has changed from low to high, it provides vital time to take action or seek external advice to reduce the risk before a serious fire occurs. If an alarm is installed correctly and is regularly maintained yet continues to trigger Predict® alerts, contact your local Fire and Rescue Service to see if you qualify for a free Safe and Well check.
During a Safe and Well check, a member of your local Fire and Rescue Service will identify any potential fire risks in your home, check alarms and help put together a household escape plan. If you are not eligible for a Safe and Well visit, there are still actions you can take to reduce the risk from fire in the home.
Many Fire and Rescue Services offer an online Home Fire Safety Check, answering questions about your property, lifestyle and health status, including recognising any concerns around early on‑set dementia or cognitive decline. You’ll be left with personalised advice you can download, adopt and apply to help reduce your fire safety risk. Find out further guidance here on the steps you should take following a Predict® alert being triggered.
According to research, almost 1 in 4 carers said they frequently felt unable to cope with day to day caring due to the physical and emotional stresses of their unpaid role. For many carers, having the right support and processes in place is vital to ensure the time they have available to look after someone is as efficient as possible. And advancements in technology have been instrumental in offering a “lifeline” for the millions of unpaid carers in the UK.
Technology, such as telecare equipment, has traditionally been used by many carers, with systems such as personal alarms or fall detectors supporting a more independent life for those being cared for. These already familiar systems can be combined with new sensors that build on traditional smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors to provide holistic support for an individual’s health, wellbeing and safety. With the right technology in place, carers can feel peace of mind for an individual’s safety and wellbeing.
Using the Connected app, carers can monitor the Predict® risk level of those they support, with automatic alerts received via email or through the app if the fire risk level changes. This is ideal for tight time schedules, when tasks such as ensuring smoke alarms are in working order can often be put to the bottom of carers’ long list of duties. Following a Predict® trigger, carers can seek external help, such as from the local Fire and Rescue Service or a GP, for further advice and support in reducing the risk from fire in a home.
With the ability to list multiple properties in the Connected app and monitor the fire risk level in real-time, Predict® helps keep vulnerable loved ones such as elderly relatives or neighbours safe and protect those who live around them. After the Covid‑19 pandemic left many families unable to visit loved ones, changing behaviours such as those linked to dementia, could potentially be going unnoticed.
Dementia affects over 900,000 people in the UK, with that number projected to rise to nearly 1.6 million in 2040. Common early symptoms include memory loss, difficulty in concentrating, confusion about time and place and finding it hard to carry out familiar daily tasks. For people aged 80 and above, the majority of linked fires in the home are caused by the misuse of equipment or appliances, with 50% of fires starting in the kitchen. When it comes to multiple occupation, terraced homes and high‑rise buildings, a major fire doesn’t just put the vulnerable person at risk, but potentially hundreds of lives.
Most people want to stay in their homes for as long as possible before moving to residential or specialist care, but that requires a safe environment in which to live with the right support. With a Gateway installed in a network, use the Connected app to remotely test and silence Pro Connected alarms across any of the properties you have listed on the move, without having to reach a ceiling mounted test button. When setting up a Gateway, each alarm can be named to correspond with the room to identify which alarm has been triggered to support a rapid response.
If you receive a Predict® alert for increased fire risk at the vulnerable family member or neighbour’s home, it is advised to seek external support. Fire and Rescue Services have become much more focused on prevention and increasingly recognise that some people – including older people and people with dementia – need additional support. As well as conducting home fire safety checks and providing smoke alarms, fire retardant bedding packs and other equipment, local services also put people in touch with agencies that can offer additional measures that can help reduce the fire risk in a home.
In 2010, as an industry first, FireAngel introduced a battery powered smoke alarm with diagnostics capability which stored the last 10 device activations within its data centre. These alarms have since been regularly installed during Home Safety visits completed by Fire & Rescue Services across the country. If any of these devices were in properties where serious fires took place, they were sent to FireAngel’s head office for forensic investigation.
The data soon highlighted that in many cases there were multiple activations in the weeks or sometimes days before the larger, and in many cases fatal, fires had occurred. During these pre‑cursor occurrences when a smoke or heat alarm was activated, the device would log events, including the time taken to silence alarm and the number of activations in a day, recording if a device had also been removed from its baseplate.
These indications reinforced both national statistics and anecdotal messages from Fire & Rescue Services that many fires are caused by repeated behaviours. Fire Officers know the time taken to silence a sounding alarm could be longer due to reduced mobility, hoarding, or inebriation. They are also aware devices are regularly removed if residents are smokers or abuse drugs.
Fire & Rescue Services estimate that only one in four fires in the UK are known to them, so having a map of the missing fires could help prevent the one known fire from even occurring as an outcome of successful interventions. FireAngel created a patented application taking the data of these activations or ‘near misses’ and developed the accessible AI tool Predict®.
This provides a real-time view of the active risk in a property in two simple outputs – either low risk, with no further action needed, or high risk, which requires urgent interventions to prevent the probability of a future fire.
Discover more about our Pro Connected range of smart alarms, including the free app, or read how Fire & Rescue Services are using Predict® technology to revolutionise the way they protect high-risk individuals in communities.
