AI-powered system from Highlight Parking helps prevent catastrophic fires by detecting smoke or fire in seconds

Key to preventing the devastation, damage and injury caused by fire is early detection. Highlight Parking has launched its AI-powered Smoke and Fire Early Warning System S.A.F.E., which detects smoke or fire within just a few seconds in any environment where there is a risk of fire. This means emergency services can be alerted sooner and prevent a fire spreading out of control.

Why S.A.F.E.?
One particular fire that made the news, was at King’s Dock multi-storey car park at the Liverpool Echo Arena on New Year’s Eve 2017. By the time the fire service had been alerted, the fire had been burning for 13 minutes, and despite their quick response, it was too late; 1,200 vehicles were destroyed, and the insurance bill was a massive £20 million. Thankfully nobody was injured. It was this fire that inspired Highlight Parking to begin developing S.A.F.E. to help prevent similar events in the future, not just in multi-storey car parks but any large commercial or public building.

“We developed S.A.F.E. because conventional fire systems in car parks are based on heat detection, which means a fire may already be out of control before the alarm is raised, as was the case at King’s Dock”, explains David Harrison, MD at Highlight Parking. “Obviously, fire safety is extremely important to car park operators as well as building owners, and Chief Fire Officers cite speed of response as absolutely critical when it comes to preventing a fire disaster, like the one in Liverpool. S.A.F.E. provides this.”

How it works
S.A.F.E. works with around-the-clock unattended monitoring, automatically detecting the presence of any smoke within seconds. Connected to a cloud application, S.A.F.E. immediately triggers a visual and audible alert, with email/SMS warnings sent automatically to smart devices and to control room screens. S.A.F.E.’s AI capability means that smoke can be detected as fast as the human eye, rather than waiting for flames to reach the car park’s ceiling mounted fire wire detectors. The outcome is that emergency measures can be put into practice far more quickly, so the likelihood of serious damage or injury is dramatically reduced.

S.A.F.E. in action
FTSE 100 company, Severn Trent Water in Coventry has implemented the S.A.F.E. solution at its headquarters’ multi-storey car park. With 15,000 employees, it is no surprise that health and safety is of paramount importance to the organisation.

Richard Carney, Project Manager at Severn Trent comments, “The S.A.F.E. system was a guaranteed investment for us. We did of course have a fire alarm system in the car park but, S.A.F.E. provides a far quicker response; we timed it at between seven and eight seconds compared to 12 minutes for our existing system.”

Not just for car parks
While S.A.F.E. has been developed for car parks, its AI software can be implemented in any other space where there is a fire risk, such as foyers, cafeterias, warehouses, storage facilities, retail and other large buildings. The system can be installed by uploading Highlight’s proprietary S.A.F.E. software to an existing or new CCTV camera system.

Using its AI technology, Highlight can also develop specialist bespoke solutions for any internal or external monitoring or information gathering.

For more information visit highlightparking.co.uk or call 020 8769 7730.

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