Hi guys, I just wanted to know what would cause a major FACP failure; because a couple of days ago, the fire alarms (comprised of EST Integrity’s, SpectrAlert Advanced, SpectrAlert Classic- all in Code 3) went off 2 times, then everything just quit. They had us all evacuate the building, and made us stand outside for an 1 full hour, during which the fire department showed up, and the sirens kept going off. After that, everyone kept saying it was a regular monthly fire drill, but I said that "the moat logical explanation is that it was a MAJOR panel malfunction. Could anyone please explain what would cause that?
Hard to tell what really happened unless you were at the panel - although very rare, a fire alarm system crash does happen. Sometimes it can just be a programming issue or cpu error, issues on the primary power (like a surge), or if they added devices to the system without doing load and battery calculations, when they do the first drill, the system can crash from not being able to keep up with the current demand.
It’s also possible someone accidently set it off and tried to reset the system right away - some places like schools require evacuation if the alarm goes off, even if someone silences the system right away. And silencing or resetting the system won’t stop the FD from showing up. The dialer has already been activated.
Most likely user error. Whoever was doing the drill didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t notify the monitoring company who sent the fire trucks out.