Dubai: More than 40,000 buildings in Dubai are connected to the new Life Safety Dashboard, which was officially launched by the Dubai Civil Defence on Monday.
The Life Safety Dashboard is a system consisting of two main dashboards, one in the Jebel Ali main operations room and one in the Civil Defence headquarters. These are linked to dashboards in the buildings. The dashboards can also be accessed through tablets and smartphones from any location. Maj Gen Rashid Thani Al Matroushi, Director of Dubai Civil Defence, said the system provides real-time information from the buildings’ control panels, which includes information such as the state of the fire systems, the elevators, the water tanks, and anything that could pose a risk to the building.
“The system also has comprehensive up-to-date information of all Dubai Civil Defence stations and their equipment and trucks, all the fire incidents or false fire alarms. This information, which is automatically updated by the system, helps us at Dubai Civil Defence know what the hot spots for fires are and help us take more informed decisions,” he said.
This also helps them distribute their resources according to high-risk areas.
He added the system also reports any malfunction in fire systems, or other building systems, so steps can be taken instantly to prevent bigger problems.
The system is integrated with the pre-existing 24x7 Dubai Civil Defence system that connects thousands of Dubai buildings to the operations room.
“We aim to cover 70,000 buildings in Dubai within the next three years. The buildings currently connected include high-rise buildings, warehouses, hospitals, schools and factories.” Maj Gen Al Matroushi said.
He added that the dashboard will make it possible for every business owner in Dubai to have access to their business or building’s dashboard, and that there are plans in the future for the public to have access to the dashboard through their smart devices.
Dubai Civil Defence also opened the door for government departments that want to access the system or include their information on the system.
Maj Gen Al Matroushi explained that the public would not have access to the same scope of information.
Thanks to smart fire systems, he said, fires in high-rises are not a big issue. “The real challenge for us is the small buildings that do not have fire systems,” he added. He noted that there were no fatalities due to fires in 2015.
The most common violation caught by Dubai Civil Defence is fire exits being locked. “We take this very seriously and immediately fine the building management anywhere between Dh10,000 and Dh100,000.” he said.
Dubai Civil Defence, he said, is 100 per cent smart.
