Talking About …

… the significant increase in fire accidents both globally and across the UAE and the demand for smarter solutions that can monitor public and fire safety.

Ayman Alsebeyi, SVP Smart Cities & Hassantuk GM at Injazat who provides the Fire Middle East readership with greater insights into the current state of fire safety in the region.

What makes Hassantuk smart monitoring equipment from other systems?

Hassantuk is the world’s first digital solution for fire and life safety alarms and fire systems maintenance monitoring designed to handle an entire country’s needs. In the UAE, Hassantuk for Buildings is the only certified smart fire safety system designed for protecting lives and proprieties. With a 24×7 connected fire alarm system that is fully integrated with the Civil Defense Command Centres in all emirates, the system ensures the fastest and most effective response time to fires and emergencies.

AI engines generate regular operational and business intelligence reports. What inspired Injazat to uses its electronic expertise to create Hassantuk?

Injazat aspires to be on the list of top innovative companies in the world and therefore, we invest ourselves in the most innovative and impactful of projects. Injazat is also a great advocate of supporting the local economy and we pursue this goal by collaborating with government bodies to play our part. Of course, it helps that they trust us to provide nothing but the best.

Our main goal with Hassantuk was to provide a system that would protect lives and property from fires and other life-threatening situations. Our primary goal is to create additional safety within society, whether it be at home, at work, or in any public space across the country.

Injazat has been working with the Ministry of Interior and the UAE Civil Defense since 2018 to revolutionise the way the nation responds to emergency events. We want to make the UAE be one of the safest countries in the world.

What type of buildings across the UAE are made safe by Hassantuk?

Hassantuk connects to both commercial and residential Buildings. Our commercial property and residential establishment fire and life safety 24×7 monitoring programme extends to almost every type of buildings. These include warehouses, petrol stations, manufacturing plants, hotels, residential blocks and towers, commercial properties, educational institutions, shopping malls, retail outlets, offices, banks, medical centres and hospitals, industrial setups, mosques, and government buildings.

Do you prioritise buildings when it comes to fortification i.e., medical care, education etc?

Hassantuk has clearly defined priorities. Our initial focus was and remains on critical national infrastructure, buildings of national importance, buildings at risk and other priority buildings including schools, hospitals, and public places.

Do you operate the control room?

Hassantuk ARC operations are supported by a multilingual team of highly trained agents that physically or virtually man the Hassantuk ARC (Alarm Receiving Centre ) 24x 7, 365 days a year. Fire and life safety alarms are received from connected buildings, triaged by the agents using a high level of technical automation and then passed to civil defence for a much more effective response. The control centre platform was specifically designed to be securely manned from both the state-of-the art control room located in the Hassantuk building or remotely in the event of any situation that prevents a physical presence. From the very beginning of the COVID outbreak Hassantuk was seamlessly able to continue to manage all alarms sent to the ARC from remote locations in a secure and effective way, ensuring complete business continuity at all times.

 What information will the Emergency Services receive regarding a fire incident? Will the system make the response faster and more efficient?

During an emergency, such as a fire, lift, pump or breakdown, a critical alarm signal is immediately sent to the command control centre. A signal is also sent if any safety system malfunctions or requires maintenance. At Civil Defence, screens in the monitoring room and individual working stations display the building location, any building specific information (such as hazardous materials), the type and exact location of the alarm in the building, the evacuation plan, different routes to the building, and important contact information.

In addition to monitoring the buildings, Civil Defence also tracks the locations of its vehicles to know where the closest one is. The operator can then dispatch emergency services, equipment, and fire fighting vehicles accordingly.

By integrating advanced Artificial Intelligence smart technologies to monitor and report fire incidents, Hassantuk optimizes the UAE’s response to fire and emergency alerts through a 24×7 connected fire alarm system. The entire protocol to verify the alarm has a maximum time of 120 seconds. Emergency signals sent to the Hassantuk Command Centre in the event of an incident ensure a faster and more effective response by pinpointing the exact location of the danger to the emergency services, allowing them to respond faster with the right equipment and skills, thus, enhancing the safety of people and properties across the UAE.

Can the fire and life safety alarm system be combined with a security system?

Yes – Whilst the Hassantuk ATE (Alarm Transmission Equipment) is currently connected to a buildings Fire Alarm Control Panel or Building Maintenance System and is specifically certified to transmit fire and life safety alarm it can be easily adapted to consume additional alarms of any type. The ARC software is specifically designed to accommodate multiple different alarm types with unique built-in automated actions according to the type of alarm received. Existing or different types of alarm transmission equipment can also be used to connect to the ARC platform overcoming any interoperability issues or current investments.

Does the system monitor the status of fire suppression systems within the buildings and send alerts of activations?

Yes – if the FACP or BMS are connected to the fire suppression systems then the ATE will monitor activations and maintenance events. If, however, the buildings systems are not connected to the FSS then a simple ATE can be used to monitor the stand-alone system in a cost effective and efficient way.

How do you minimise false alarms?

Hassantuk uses both technology and human intervention to minimise false alarms. All fire alarms are transmitted to the ARC where the system will automatically identify the property, assign the alarm to an agent, and automatically call the registered emergency contact number. Any alarms that cannot be verified are sent to the civil defence with an automated notification to the building owner to ensure a prompt response in the future. Advanced reporting identifies persistent offenders for escalation to the Civil defence compliance teams

Regular social media and direct communications are used to remind all building owners to maintain their emergency contact details at all times. Alongside all of this the Hassantuk system constantly monitors the ATE for any technical issues or repeated alarm floods that are generated by a faulty building system.

 What does the future hold for residents, building owners and commercial occupiers with regard to advanced safety systems?

Hassantuk offers new levels of data-driven and IoT-enabled performance to fire and life safety management in the UAE through deep system integration (Currently 25K+ buildings are connected), predictive and condition-based maintenance of Fire and life safety Assets and increased resilience and security.

Our Fire and Life Safety Solutions offer an innovative solution to civil defense by leveraging the latest technology including IoT Platform, Edge Devices, Business intelligence, Converged Security & Information Management system and state-of-the-art alarm receiving centre (ARC), which is manned 24/7 for real time monitoring of buildings across the UAE.

In the event of a fire or life safety event at any property from the connected buildings in the UAE, the alarm is sent to Hassantuk system by our edge device via a dedicated APN (4G Network) in less than one second and after verification by our agents, it is sent to civil defense immediately to dispatch help. Hassantuk will continually review and where applicable, invest in leading edge technologies such as voice bots to ensure no alarms are missed and the value to civil defense and the safety of people and property is increased

Our solution maintains protection of buildings at the highest levels of service and have processed more than 10 million alarms during the last year alone and saved invaluable lives and properties, thus helping make the UAE one of the safety countries in the world.