Fire Protection Acquisitions in the U.S., 2020 to 2026: A Registry of Deals, Buyers and Service Lines

Registry of announced U.S. fire protection and life safety acquisitions, January 2020 to October 2026

Checked quarterly. Last checked 2026-10-26. Entries are neutral records of public data; each links to its source record.

Fire protection acquisitions registry: what is counted

The registry holds 314 dated records drawn from six buyers' own newsrooms and from SEC filings. It is a floor, not a census of the market.

Each entry is a U.S. fire protection or life safety company that a buyer said it acquired, dated by the buyer's announcement and linked to that record. 306 entries (97.5%) rest on a buyer statement and 3 on an SEC filing. Sister companies sold together count once.

Add-on acquisition: A platform company buying an operating fire protection, alarm, extinguisher or security service business.

Platform deal: An investor buying control of a whole platform, such as GTCR buying ADT's commercial business. The registry has 4 of these.

Buyers covered: Pye-Barker Fire & Safety, Summit Fire & Security, Sciens Building Solutions, Fortis Fire & Safety, VSC Fire & Security and APi Group. Other active consolidators named in trade sources (for example Encore Fire Protection, Guardian Fire Services, AI Fire, Marmic Fire & Safety and Altus Fire & Life Safety) were not read in full; see the methodology.

Fire protection acquisitions per year, 2020 to 2026

Announced add-on deals grew every year from 19 in 2020 to 69 in 2025.

The 2024 to 2025 change was 6.2%, much smaller than earlier jumps. The 2026 figure of 37 covers less than ten months. Early years may be undercounted because some buyers published fewer releases before 2022.

Who is buying fire protection companies

Two platforms dominate: Pye-Barker and Summit together made 269 of 310 add-on deals.

Pye-Barker names Altas Partners and Leonard Green & Partners as lead investors. Summit was bought by BlackRock Long Term Private Capital in 2021 and agreed to a sale of a majority stake to BDT & MSD Partners in 2025. Sciens describes itself as backed by The Carlyle Group.

Public buyers appear rarely by name. APi Group's filings count 28 acquisitions from 2023 to 2025 with $333 million in aggregate consideration but name none; VSC, owned by Markel Group, reports 38 locations across 15 states.

Private-capital platforms vs. public strategic buyers

97.4% of named add-on deals came from private-capital-backed platforms.

The split is 302 private-capital deals to 8 public-company deals. The gap partly reflects disclosure habits: platforms announce small deals to recruit sellers, while APi Group reports small deals only as aggregates in its 10-K.

Where acquired fire protection companies are based

Targets came from 45 states; the top three hold 30.0% of deals.

19 deals have no single state because the record names several states or none. To find inspection firms in your area, use the provider finder; code editions vary by state, see fire code adoption by state.

Service lines in fire protection acquisitions

Alarm and security businesses are the most common targets; 19.7% of records list three or more lines.

Buyers differ. 38.3% of Pye-Barker records name security and monitoring; 60.8% of Summit records name extinguisher or kitchen suppression; 80.0% of Sciens records name fire alarm work. 22.6% of records name no service line, mostly headline-only releases.

Inspection requirements for each line are summarized on our pages for fire alarms, fire sprinklers, fire extinguishers, kitchen hood suppression and special hazard suppression.

Why buyers say inspection and service revenue attracts them

Buyers' own filings and releases describe code-mandated, recurring inspection and service work.

APi Group's 10-K for 2025 states that "mandated building codes and inspections and maintenance requirements, continue to generate increasing demand for our services, often on a recurring basis" (10-K). Its strategy list includes "Grow Inspection, Service, and Monitoring Revenue".

Announcing CertaSite, APi described a focus on "non-discretionary, regulatory driven, recurring revenue opportunities" and a mix shift toward 60% of revenue from inspection, service and monitoring (8-K). Summit's 2021 sale release called it "a one-stop-shop of non-discretionary fire and life safety services".

Lincoln International, an adviser, wrote in 2022 that "the recurring nature of the services and regulatory-driven demand provide strong visibility into future earnings." These are the parties' own characterizations, reported here without endorsement.

Disclosed values and the disclosure gap

Almost no deal states a price, and buyers announce only part of what they buy.

For 2022 to 2025 Pye-Barker stated 168 acquisitions and named 118, leaving at least 50 unnamed. No values have been estimated for undisclosed deals.

Counts and distributions

Download the calculations (CSV)

Key findings

1. 310 add-on acquisitions of U.S. fire protection and life safety companies were announced by the six buyers in this registry from January 1, 2020 to October 26, 2026.^[22][29][34]
2. Announced add-on deals in the U.S. reached 69 in 2025, up 6.2% from 65 in 2024 and up from 19 in 2020.^[22][29][34]
3. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety announced 167 U.S. acquisitions from 2020 to October 2026, 53.9% of the registry.^[22][28]
4. Summit Fire & Security announced 102 U.S. acquisitions from 2020 to October 2026, 32.9% of the registry.^[29]
5. Sciens Building Solutions, backed by The Carlyle Group, announced 30 U.S. acquisitions from March 2022 to October 2026.^[34]
6. Private-capital-backed platforms made 97.4% of announced U.S. add-on deals from 2020 to October 2026; a public company or its subsidiary made 2.6%.^{[27][31][34][19]}
7. Florida-based companies were the most frequent U.S. targets, with 41 deals (13.2%), followed by Texas with 34 (11.0%).^[22][29][34]
8. Fire alarm and detection appears in 133 of 310 U.S. deal records (42.9%), the most common service line, 2020 to 2026.^[22][29][34]
9. 61 of 310 U.S. deal records (19.7%) list three or more service lines, 2020 to 2026.^[22][29][34]
10. Pye-Barker stated 57 acquisitions in 2024 but named 34 individually (59.6%).^[24][22]
11. APi Group's 10-K notes count 5 acquisitions in 2023, 9 in 2024 and 14 in 2025, with aggregate consideration of $24 million, $76 million and $233 million, and name none of them.^[3][2][1]
12. APi Group paid approximately $271 million in cash at closing for CertaSite, a Midwest inspection-first fire and life safety provider, on February 2, 2026.^[1][7]
13. GTCR bought ADT's commercial security, fire and life safety business for a $1.6 billion purchase price, completed on October 2, 2023.^[17]
14. 2 of 314 registry entries (0.6%) carry a disclosed deal value; the rest state none.^[1][17]

Executive summary

• The registry lists 314 U.S. fire protection and life safety acquisitions with a dated public record: 310 add-on purchases of operating companies and 4 platform deals between investors.
• Announced add-on deals rose from 19 in 2020 to 69 in 2025, a 3.6x increase; 37 were announced from January 1 to October 26, 2026.
• Pye-Barker Fire & Safety accounts for 167 deals (53.9%) and Summit Fire & Security for 102 (32.9%).
• Private-capital-backed platforms made 302 of the 310 add-on deals (97.4%); public APi Group and Markel-owned VSC made 8.
• Acquired companies are based in 45 states; Florida (41), Texas (34) and California (18) lead.
• Fire alarm and detection is named in 42.9% of deal records, security and monitoring in 36.5%, sprinkler and extinguisher or kitchen suppression in 27.4% each.
• Only 2 entries carry a disclosed value: APi Group paid approximately $271 million for CertaSite and GTCR paid $1.6 billion for ADT's commercial business.
• Pye-Barker says it made 168 acquisitions from 2022 to 2025 but named 118 of them (70.2%), so public announcements understate the real count.

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Methodology

Scope: U.S.-based fire protection and life safety service companies (sprinkler, fire alarm and detection, extinguisher and kitchen suppression, special hazard, and security and monitoring firms that also offer fire or life safety work) whose acquisition was announced from January 1, 2020 to October 26, 2026.

Sources: each buyer's own newsroom, read page by page (Pye-Barker pages 1 to 18, Summit pages 1 to 16, Sciens pages 1 to 8, Fortis and VSC announcement pages), and SEC EDGAR filings by APi Group, ADT, Markel Group and Cintas, found through the EDGAR submissions index and full-text search with a declared User-Agent. Trade press was used only to date one undated buyer page (Fortis) and to identify Fortis's backer.

Inclusion: a deal enters the registry only if a dated public record names the acquired company. The date is the buyer's announcement or publication date, not the closing date. Where a release names several unrelated companies, each counts; sister companies sold together count once. Deals named only in a buyer's roundup (Pye-Barker, July 15, 2025) carry the roundup date.

Exclusions: non-U.S. targets (Chubb, SK FireSafety, Onyx-Fire, WTech), elevator and HVAC businesses (Elevated, Northern Air), deals known only from trade press or deal databases, and records with conflicting dates in the buyer's own pages. All exclusions are listed in excluded.md.

Classification: service lines are tagged only from the services the buyer's record lists or the company's name states (for example "Sprinkler", "Alarm", "Security", "Extinguisher"). Records with generic names and no service list are tagged "not stated". State is the state of the city or headquarters the record gives; multi-state targets without a named headquarters are left unassigned. Buyer type follows ownership named in releases or filings.

Conflicts: company-stated totals differ from named deals and from third-party counts (SDM counts Pye-Barker at over 30 in 2025; Pye-Barker says 57; Lincoln International counted 12 Summit add-ons since 2019, while Summit cited 55 strategic acquisitions by 2021). These are shown side by side, not reconciled. Deal values appear only where the record states them; none are estimated.

Limitations: the registry is a floor. Other consolidators (for example Encore Fire Protection, Guardian Fire Services, AI Fire, Marmic Fire & Safety and Altus Fire & Life Safety) were not read in full, Encore's newsroom returned an error on 2026-10-26, and APi Group does not name most bolt-ons. Counts by year depend on how often each buyer published.

Derived metrics are reproducible from scripts/build_report.py and tables/registry.csv. Last updated 2026-10-26; the registry is rechecked quarterly.

This report records public acquisition announcements. It is not legal, financial or investment advice and does not evaluate any buyer or seller.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, engineering, financial or investment advice. Requirements depend on the code edition your state and local fire marshal have adopted; confirm with your authority having jurisdiction.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (21)

• [1] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 (filed 2026-02-25). Fiscal 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [2] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2024 (filed 2025-02-26). Fiscal 2024. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [3] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2023 (filed 2024-02-28). Fiscal 2023. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [4] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2022 (filed 2023-03-01). Fiscal 2022. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [5] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2021 (filed 2022-03-01). Fiscal 2021. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [6] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal 2020 (filed 2021-03-24). Fiscal 2020. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [7] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit 99.1: APi Group Announces Acquisition of CertaSite (2025-12-10). December 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [8] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit 99.1: Completes Acquisition of Onyx-Fire Protection Services (2026-06-09). June 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [9] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit 99.1: Completes the Acquisition of WTech Fire Group (2026-07-02). July 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [10] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit 99.1: completion of Elevated Facility Services Group acquisition (2024-06-04). June 2024. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [11] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K (2021-09-13): Chubb purchase agreement and carve-out financials. July to September 2021. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [12] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K (2022-01-03): completion of the Chubb acquisition. January 2022. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [13] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K (2021-07-30): Chubb purchase agreement. July 2021. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [14] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit 99.1: second-quarter 2023 results (2023-07-11). Q2 2023. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [15] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group 8-K Exhibit (2025-05-02): company description. May 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [16] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). APi Group Corp. EDGAR submissions index (CIK 0001796209). 2020 to October 2026 filings. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [17] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). ADT Inc. 8-K Exhibit 99.1: ADT Completes Sale of Commercial Business (2023-10-02). October 2023. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [18] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). ADT Inc. 8-K Exhibit 99.1: second-quarter 2023 results (2023-08-08). August 2023. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [19] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). Markel Group Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal 2025 (filed 2026-02-26). Fiscal 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [20] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). Cintas Corp. Form 10-K for fiscal year ended May 31, 2022. Fiscal 2021 and 2022. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [21] U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR). EDGAR full-text search: 8-K filings 2020-01-01 to 2026-10-26 for "fire and life safety" acquisition. 2020 to October 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.

Tier 2: trade bodies, market research, company data (15)

• [22] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety newsroom (pages 1 to 18). January 2020 to September 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [23] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Accelerates Growth Strategy with 57 Acquisitions in 2025. 2025 (published 2026-03-17). Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [24] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Grows with 57 Acquisitions in 2024. 2024 (published 2025-04-07). Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [25] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Projects Another High-Velocity Year. 2023 (published 2024-01-25). Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [26] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Acquires 23 Companies in 2022, Opens Call for Sellers. 2022 (published 2023-01-24). Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [27] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Secures Additional Private Capital. January 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [28] Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Continues Acquisition Momentum Throughout the First Half of 2025. January to July 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [29] Summit Companies (SFP Holding). Summit Companies news and press (pages 1 to 16). January 2020 to October 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [30] Summit Companies (SFP Holding). BlackRock Long Term Private Capital Acquires Summit Companies. September 2021. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [31] Summit Companies (SFP Holding). Summit Companies Announces Acquisition by BDT & MSD Partners. August 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [32] Summit Companies (SFP Holding). Summit Fire & Security Announces the Purchase of Fire & Life Safety America. January 2022. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [33] Summit Companies (SFP Holding). Summit Fire & Security to Expand National Presence with Performance Systems Integration Acquisition. August 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [34] Sciens Building Solutions. Sciens Building Solutions press releases (pages 1 to 8). March 2022 to October 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [35] Fortis Fire & Safety. Fortis Fire & Safety news. 2024 to March 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [36] VSC Fire & Security. VSC Fire & Security acquisition announcements. November 2022 to May 2026. Accessed 2026-10-26.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (5)

• [37] SecurityInfoWatch. Levine Leichtman Capital Partners sells Encore Fire Protection (press release copy). March 2025. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [38] SDM Magazine. Fortis Fire & Safety Acquires to Expand Multi-Regional Reach. August 2024. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [39] International Fire & Safety Journal. Imperial Capital Launches Fortis Fire & Safety. January 2021. Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [40] SDM Magazine. A Year of Surprises: M&A Activity in 2025 Slightly Improves. 2025 (published 2026-02-23). Accessed 2026-10-26.
• [41] Lincoln International. M&A Activity in Fire and Life Safety Services Continues to Heat Up. 2021 to H1 2022 (published August 2022). Accessed 2026-10-26.