Many industrial plants cannot avoid using hazardous materials in their technological processes. As can be seen in practice all over the world, despite the utmost care taken when handling and storing these materials, industrial plants may cause environmental contamination and pose a severe health risk to their employees and people living nearby. Equally, despite stringent fire regulations, there is a great risk of fire, endangering people’s property and lives. Not only does this apply to industrial facilities with higher amounts of flammable material, but virtually to any facility, building, or equipment.

Most countries are directly obliged by national legislation to establish warning and fire evacuation systems for their industrial plants to warn their employees and the general population in their close surroundings in case of an accident or fire.

This warning obligation is usually regulated by the following types of legal norms:

• General occupational safety regulations
• Civil defence regulations (mass early warning systems)
• Fire regulations (fire evacuation broadcasting systems and electronic fire alarms)

Although the technical requirements for the first group of regulations are not exactly specified, the requirements regarding technological devices employed in the other two groups of systems, i.e. mass early warning systems, fire evacuation broadcasting systems and electronic fire alarms, are very strictly set in most countries.

It was quite common in the past that separate fire evacuation systems were established. In addition to that, if an industrial plant/manufacturer was potentially dangerous at the same time, i.e. polluting or damaging the environment due to the employment of hazardous materials, they were obliged to establish an additional separate warning system on their own. Nowadays, in many countries, the method of interconnection of both systems is regulated by their national legislation in order to increase the efficiency of these systems. Another, even higher level of protection is the integration of both systems mentioned above into a national or regional mass early warning system, which results in significant savings in both capital and operating costs.

Industrial warning systems:

• Energy industry
• Chemical industry
• Steel industry
• Oil and gas industry

Should you have any further questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be glad to assist you and offer you professional advice.

The article was written by

Zuzana Jacova

Zuzana works at Telegrafia at the marketing department. Her main responsibility is to keep an eye on Google Ads and Facebook. Online marketing is changing all the time, giving her the chance to expand her knowledge constantly and put it into real practice. After work, she relaxes best by going to the gym and watching good films.