According to the U.S. Fire Administration, this upcoming weekend's time change for congressionally mandated Daylight Saving Time may have unintended consequences in the fire protection industry.

Embedded computer clocks in fire alarm control panels; central processing units; digital communicators; remote annunciators; central, auxiliary, remote and proprietary monitoring equipment; and other electronic devices may not be programmed correctly to recognize the time changeover at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, March 11.

While the electronics industry and computer software companies are writing and installing patches for their equipment, stand-alone fire alarm control panels may not be reprogrammed or serviced in time to adjust. Or, like the Y2K issue faced at the turn of the last century, it may not be a problem at all.

Although fire inspectors may not be able to check all fire alarm systems within their jurisdictions, they should be prepared to deal with potential consequences. The USFA offers the following suggestions and cautions:

• If a fire alarm control panel or digital communicator transmits a fire alarm, verify that it is correctly time-stamped for when the incident occurs.
• The supervising station that receives the alarm (central, remote, auxiliary, or proprietary) may have receipt times that differ dramatically from transmission times.
• If you are conducting a post-incident investigation and the alarm times don't correlate, you may want to put a note in the investigation report to explain the anomaly.
• Timed functions associated with fire alarms, such as 24-hour trouble signal reminders, may not report properly.
• Auxiliary functions, such as automatic fire pump starts or door locking/unlocking devices, may not operate as planned.