NFPA 72 code sections · Devices & Signal Flow: How the Panel Hears and Speaks
Communicator: the panel alerting the people who dispatch the fire department
The last 'alert' device in the chain isn't in the building: when the panel declares an alarm, it hands the signal to its communicator — a DACT, IP or cellular transmitter — which delivers it to the supervising station, where an operator dispatches the fire department and calls the owner. The code requires alarm signals to be delivered to the supervising station within 90 seconds, supervisory and trouble signals to be transmitted and acted on according to their type, and the communication path itself to be supervised so a lost path is annunciated (within 60 minutes for a single path, 6 hours for each of two paths).
NFPA 72 reference
Chapter 26 — Supervising Station Alarm Systems
26.6.3 Communications Methods (26.6.3.1.1 alarm signals delivered within 90 seconds; 26.6.3.1 path supervision — single path 60 min, dual path 6 h); 26.3.8 / 26.5.5 disposition of signals by the supervising station
References use NFPA 72 2019/2022 numbering — section numbers can shift between editions, so confirm in the edition your AHJ has adopted.
On the job, step by step
- The panel declares an alarm from a second-floor pull station.
- It passes the alarm to the communicator at the same time it starts the horns and strobes.
- The communicator sends the alarm over its primary IP path; the supervising station receives it 8 seconds later — well within 90 seconds — and the operator dispatches the fire department and phones the owner's contact.
- Minutes later the panel's communicator reports a trouble because the building's internet dropped; the cellular path takes over and the station notes the single-path condition.
Quick check
1. An alarm must reach the supervising station within:
2. Who dispatches the fire department when a monitored panel alarms?
3. A failed single communication path must be annunciated within:
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