Leads for fire restoration business

[PDQFire]

I own a fire (smoke damage mostly) restoration business.
We don't "chase" fires but wait until a day after and then stop by after everyone else leaves.
We ask the homeowner if there is anything we can do to help. Lots of the time all they want is advice on how to clean themselves. Some times they call us back and say it is too much for them.
We are trying to find out better ways to locate these people so we can help.
When an alert goes out on the "usual" networks you can count on 4-6 public adjusters to show up during the fire and try to get the home owner to sign up with them.
We are looking for the small cooking fires where the fire department vented the house. These usually do not get to the public adjusters.
We pride our selves in helping people not trying to trick them into signing with us!
If anyone has advice on how to set up a system to allow us to listen to recorded broadcasts within our county please respond.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[W8RMH]

Some restoration businesses are using Incident Notification Services such as Alertpage or IPN.

 

[wyShack]

PDQFire-

Not sure where you are but check out the live audio tab for the site. If there are live audio streams of interest, you can get the history (of most streams) with a premium subscription to this site. all that takes is the computer you are using to read the forums.

depending on your local fire department, giving them a supply of your business cards may also help.

 

[sparklehorse]

If anyone has advice on how to set up a system to allow us to listen to recorded broadcasts within our county please respond.

The newer crop of scanners can record transmissions for later review. You could set up a Uniden BCD536HP to scan your local Fire Dispatch and Ops channels and record all the transmissions it receives. This way you're not tethered to your scanner 24/7 to try to hear everything. You can just step through the recordings at the end of the day when you have time. And I think you'd want to scan all the ops channels because it's on those where you'll get the details of the incident. Most fire depts go on a lot of calls that turn out to be false alarms, or maybe the call was dispatched as a house fire, but turned out to be just a dumpster fire with no extensions. You won't know those details if you only monitor the dispatch channel.

Another model is the BCD436HP which is a portable scanner that records. I think the Uniden Home Patrol models also record, and there's some Whistler/GRE/RS models that can too.

Hope that helps.

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[PDQFire]

We have had great luck recently finding some cooking fires on local Facebook pages.
I saw a report on a town next to me with 50,000 people and they had approximately 60 "small fires" that only required an extinguisher and venting. These are perfect for us.
I am looking to find a way to find out about them.
Is there a way to go through Broadcastify?

 

[wyShack]

PDQFire-

The live audio section of this site is Broadcastify. If you are a premium member of RR you have access to the historical files on Broadcastify.

 

[bpckty1]

Some cities, such as Houston, TX, have an "active incidents" page for their FD and EMS. Check your local area and see if there is something similar there. Then you won't be stuck listening for dispatches, just check your computer every 5-15 minutes or so.

 

[sparklehorse]

The benefit of using something like the BCD536HP is that it basically records each transmission as a separate sound file. It doesn't record the often long stretches of silence in between. So you can step through the recordings very quickly. Most transmissions will be of no interest. You can determine that within a second or two, and quickly skip on to the next transmission if you want. With the Broadcastify archives you have ALL that silence to deal with. There's no good way that I know of to weed the silence out and listen to only the voice transmissions. You can fast forward, but that's tedious and time consuming, and you risk missing things. The other advantage is you can set up a radio exactly as you want. You have no control over the Broadcastify feed, or what channels are being monitored for it. I don't know where you're located, but it's quite possible your local Public Safety feed includes Police and Fire. So not only would you have to skip past all the police transmissions while you review the archive, it's also likely the feed is missing important fire dept transmissions because the scanner providing the feed had stopped on an active police channel while a dispatch was going out on the fire channel. Also with Incident Pages you only get a brief summary of the dispatch. You will not learn the details of what the fire crew discovered when they arrived. They might, as bpckty1 suggests, be helpful though in directing your focus to the times when dispatches went out. You then know what time of day you should be reviewing to find what you need. That could work for your own radio recordings or the Broadcastify archives.
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[PDQFire]

Does anyone know of any software that will record various feeds from Broadcastify?
I only want to record the live transmissions and not the dead air. Is that possible?

 

[buddrousa]

You do look like a firetruck chaser too cheap to buy a scanner even. Advertise in the paper, on the radio, on TV. As a fulltime Firefighter I see this as unethical business practices.

 

[PDQFire]

Bud,
Thanks for the kind words.
We don't "chase" fire trucks. We visit the day after and see if we can help. We are one of the most ethical restoration companies around.
We do have a scanner, and advertise in many ways. All I am looking for are ways to help more people. Lots of the time all we do is give advice. Ethics is a big thing for us. We do appreciate what firemen do for all of us.

 

[KD0TAZ]

Bud,
Thanks for the kind words.
We don't "chase" fire trucks. We visit the day after and see if we can help. We are one of the most ethical restoration companies around.
We do have a scanner, and advertise in many ways. All I am looking for are ways to help more people. Lots of the time all we do is give advice. Ethics is a big thing for us. We do appreciate what firemen do for all of us.

As someone who has been through two house fires and had numerous fire truck chasers like you show up the day after, I will tell you straight up - you're a bottom feeder, no better than an ambulance chasing lawyer. Showing up at a scene trying to pry business from someone who is vulnerable and miserable is a despicable practice.

We don't want you there, we don't care about your pitch, we want to be left alone while we try to make sense of the rubble. In fact, pretty much the best way to ensure that you will NOT get business is to show up at a scene - and i told every single one of them that. Advertise in the yellow pages, put an ad on TV, but don't show up at people's burnt out houses.

 

[PDQFire]

KDOTAZ,
Sorry to hear of your experiences.