New developments have facilitated the union of several security systems, which allows the advantages of these systems to be used by thousands of companies from the same control point. This union makes it possible to obtain not only protection, but control of time and attendance of employees or the administration of some spaces and automated systems; because the integration allows existing installations to become subsystems of a single solution, with greater capacity and more intelligent.
An integrated security system generally has alarms, CCTV, access controls, asset and fire control, the latter were said not to be integrated due to the lightness with which you have to respond to an event, however they have joined the others through TCP / IP networks, as long as this integration is monitored from the same site to be protected.
In this field of integration, one of the greatest advances that has been made is the link between video surveillance cameras and fire systems, thus having a better protection of the area to be monitored, in addition to allowing a faster and more complete action to be carried out in case of emergency. Fire detection systems also notify and give a signal of the problem or evacuation and interact with other systems, such as closing fire doors, closing air conditioning ducts, etc.
Returning to the issue of video surveillance, it helps to corroborate whether or not there is a fire outbreak reported by the panel, in addition to monitoring in real time the declared fire process and the correct evacuation of people in a place. On the other hand, the other integrated systems help to save information to correct risk procedures of the users of buildings, location and causes of fire start, etc.
The cameras allow the emission of smoke or heat to be discovered from very early, preventing incidents from happening to major, especially in those spaces where there are points that are not covered by smoke, fire or heat detectors; Additionally, video detection systems can show fire or smoke through glass doors and windows.
Some cameras identify the area of the fire, since they are located near the detectors to allow the visualization of the place and its constant monitoring, there are also some cameras with special characteristics that support the detection such as the formation of thermal images, which discover changes in temperature by monitoring infrared emissions.
In Latin America, the presence of electronic security systems is increasing every day, however the integration of these systems is very little compared to the United States and Canada. Fire detection continues to improve its technologies just like other systems, opting for solutions with greater intelligence, less human dependence and a lower need for preventive maintenance. The future of the integration of the fire segment must not only be with the security subsystems but with the automation systems of the buildings, where preventive and corrective decisions are automatically made and action is taken in a coordinated manner before an event.
