Why Integrated Fire Safety Depends on Smart Monitoring - and How Prism LX Leads the Way

In June 2025, Pye-Barker Fire & Safety announced its acquisition of Moore Fire Protection, a premier Seattle-based firm specializing in sprinkler system design, installation, and maintenance. While this might read as another footnote in an ongoing trend of mergers and acquisitions across the fire and life safety industry, it's worth a deeper look.

What's unfolding here isn't just corporate growth. It's a signal that the model of fire protection delivery is changing.

The age of segmented fire safety - where sprinklers, alarms, and security systems exist in silos - is coming to a close. The new expectation from facility managers, municipal authorities, and building owners is integration: a smooth, centrally managed safety ecosystem that makes sure no alarm, no signal, and no hazard goes unnoticed.

And with that shift comes a new set of requirements - not just in hardware and installation, but in centralized monitoring. Here, we'll break down the Security Info watch article that covers this merge and see what we can learn.

In doing so, we'll unpack what this acquisition means for the fire protection landscape, why it reflects broader market needs, and how technologies like remote monitoring platforms are enabling the future of unified, compliant, and actionable safety systems.

Moore Fire Joins Pye-Barker: More Than Just a Merger

Moore Fire Protection brings 35+ years of industry experience and a respected portfolio across the Pacific Northwest. Founded by Tracy V. Moore in 1987, the company built its name through precision design, installation excellence, and long-term service relationships with churches, schools, retail centers, and commercial buildings.

"Joining Pye-Barker allows us to continue our mission while expanding our capabilities and resources," Moore said. "Their commitment to preserving local business legacies while providing growth opportunities aligns perfectly with our values of passion, innovation, and integrity."

Pye-Barker has completed over 130 acquisitions in recent years. This has allowed them to cover an increasing range of needs, including:

• Fire alarm and detection systems
• Sprinkler and suppression installations
• Security and intrusion systems
• Inspection, testing, and compliance support

Facility stakeholders no longer want to manage multiple vendors for each aspect of protection. They want one provider that can provide smooth coordination, regulatory compliance, and real-time system visibility.

Integration Is Now a Safety Imperative

For decades, fire safety infrastructure was largely defined by compartmentalization. Sprinkler systems operated independently of fire alarms. Monitoring equipment often lacked visibility into suppression status. Security, HVAC, and elevator control were managed through entirely separate panels.

Today, that model may not work for facilities like:

• Multi-building campuses
• Public transit hubs
• Airports and seaports
• Hospitals and municipal centers
• Military installations and correctional facilities

What's needed now is not just comprehensive coverage but coordinated oversight. If a valve closes, if water flow is detected in an unexpected zone, or if a fire panel enters a trouble state, that information must reach the right decision-makers instantly. It doesn't matter whether they're in a control room or managing the facility remotely.

Let's break down a few reasons why:

1. Real-Time Response Has a Great Impact

Sprinklers buy time. But they don't replace the need for fast, intelligent response. In unmanned buildings, after-hours operations, or remote utility sites, sprinklers can activate with no human awareness unless monitoring is in place.

2. Code Compliance is Getting Stricter

Agencies like the NFPA, ICC, and local AHJs increasingly require not just installation of life safety systems, but active supervision. This means those systems must report faults, outages, and tampering in real time.

3. Risk Mitigation Demands a Broader View

A sprinkler flowing in a building is a symptom. But the cause could be anything from a legitimate fire to vandalism to mechanical failure. Integrated monitoring platforms can help distinguish between these. They provide better situational awareness and reduce false dispatches or overlooked hazards.

Monitoring Is the Backbone of Integrated Protection

This is where things get technical - and transformative.

As larger providers like Pye-Barker bundle services under one roof, the ability to monitor all these systems centrally becomes not just a feature, but a necessity.

Digitize plays a pivotal role here. The company's monitoring solutions - including its flagship Prism LX platform - offer the capabilities required to make these consolidated fire safety ecosystems functional, efficient, and code-compliant.

Let's take a closer look at what that actually means.

Monitoring Platforms Are Central to Integrated Safety

Prism LX is a UL 864-listed fire alarm monitoring system that aggregates input from a wide range of alarm panels, supervisory signals, and environmental systems into one intuitive interface.

It's engineered to work in the real world - where facilities contain a mix of legacy hardware, retrofitted panels, and newer smart infrastructure. With its programmable logic, visual zone mapping, and remote communication features, Prism LX acts as the unifying brain for complex safety networks.

Prism LX offers several key capabilities:

Multi-Protocol Integration

Whether you're working with Notifier, Simplex, Gamewell, or other panel brands, Prism LX can collect and display alarm data from all of them. This allows you to modernize your older equipment without a complete overhaul.

Supervisory and Alarm Event Logging

Each event - whether it's a tamper alert, a water flow activation, or a device going offline - is time-stamped and logged. This history supports both post-event analysis and inspection readiness.

Custom-Zone Labeling

Facilities can assign human-readable names and locations to every input point. That way, responders and maintenance teams know exactly where to go and what to address.

Redundant Communication Paths

For critical infrastructure, Prism LX offers dual redundant units and multiple communication paths to ensure continuous operation (even during network failures or disasters).

Remote Alerting and Notification

Triggered events can be programmed to initiate alerts via text, email, or relay to a central monitoring station. This means decision-makers get notified, even when no one's in the building.

Programmable Relay Logic

Users can configure the system to take automatic action: disabling elevators during fire events, activating suppression, unlocking egress points, or initiating lockdown protocols.

Prism LX Complements the Integrated Model

In today's market, you're increasingly likely to have a one-stop-shop fire alarm vendor that offers:

• Fire alarm installation
• Sprinkler system installation and maintenance
• Alarm and sprinkler inspections
• Suppression systems and special hazards solutions
• Security and intrusion systems
• Monitoring services

This full-stack model works best when paired with a monitoring system like Prism LX, which:

• Bridges legacy panels with modern supervisory interfaces
• Eliminates the need for "rip-and-replace" fire alarm system upgrades
• Supports growth through modular expansion, which is ideal for firms growing through acquisition
• Reduces confusion and training burden for facility managers through a single interface
• Enables real-time coordination between alarms, suppression, and response plans

Imagine a scenario where a water flow switch activates at 2 a.m. in a downtown commercial building. Without monitoring, no one knows. With basic monitoring, a signal might reach a central station, but offer no insight into which zone or what caused the trigger.

With Digitize, the facility manager receives a text: Water flow – Zone 4: Rooftop AHU mechanical room. At the same time, the system logs the event, alerts the central station, and triggers a notification to local security.

That's integrated safety accomplished via a unified head-end monitoring system.

Industry Momentum: Consolidation Drives Monitoring Forward

Fire and life safety firms across the country are consolidating to offer more complete packages.

Remember that monitoring isn't just about any one thing. It's about your overall system integrity. Ask yourself:

• Are your fire panels online?
• Are your suppression valves in the correct position?
• Are your detectors communicating properly?
• Are zones in trouble, or silent?

Digitize systems answer these questions continuously, 24/7.

Building the Future of Safer Facilities

Whether you manage safety for a university, a military base, a transit authority, or a municipal portfolio, the same principle applies: Your systems must not only detect, but communicate.

That means more than installing the right devices. It means choosing the right infrastructure to monitor, manage, and respond.

The industry is moving toward single-provider life safety solutions - integrated vertically from design through monitoring. That model only works when your head-end can:

• Interface with diverse legacy hardware
• Log and interpret data in real time
• Support compliance reporting
• Trigger targeted, automated actions
• Scale as facilities grow or change

That's what Digitize provides - and why it's already used in hundreds of city governments, school systems, and Department of Defense facilities nationwide.

Don't Wait Until Integration is Forced on You

Too often, facilities only discover the weakness of their disconnected safety systems during a real event - or an audit.

Digitize offers a path forward that doesn't require full system replacement or major downtime. With the Prism LX platform, your facility can:

• Retrofit older panels into modern monitoring workflows
• Unify disparate systems into one screen, one log, and one set of actions
• Comply with NFPA 72, UL 864, and ICC-mandated supervisory standards
• Monitor from a control room or from your phone - on or offsite

Ready to Prep Your Fire and Life Safety Monitoring for What's Ahead?

It's time to make sure your monitoring system is ready to keep pace with an evolving world.

Call Digitize today at (973) 663-1011
Email us at info@digitize-inc.com

Let's make sure that when every second counts, your system delivers the clarity, speed, and control you need to protect lives, property, and operations.