NTFAST : fire alarm monitoring system / NTFRS.

Entrant: Pre-disaster Category, Federal/State Government Stream, Safer Communities Awards 2005.

NTFAST is a real time mission critical application developed specifically by the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service and serves to ensure protected buildings are monitored on a 24 hour a day basis. It provides significant enhancement to fire-fighter safety through detailed knowledge on each site monitored and provides ease of reporting through Mobile Data Terminal usage into the Fire Service Reporting System (AIRS). By using remote radio telemetry as a medium, NTFAST does not succumb to the extreme weather, especially lightning strikes that played havoc with the copper hard-wired systems. The system has improved industry servicing of vital fire protection in buildings by ensuring that required standards are met and maintained through enhanced data logging and reporting process. System availability and reliability has been increased and costs have been significantly reduced to clients by eliminating the previous third party involvement with the removal of reliance on hard wired systems between the building being monitored and the relevant fire station required to respond. Government's commitment to community safety programs and well being of Territorians continues to be exceeded and maintained as a focal point through the auspices of NTFAST as a life safety medium. There is no doubt that the NTFRS has moved Fire Alarm Monitoring and Emergency Response Systems into the 21st Century by utilising Radio Telemetry and Data Acquisition systems as an operating platform for the first time in Australia and quite possibly the whole of the southern hemisphere.