Use Of Fire Station Sirens

[MrAntiDigital]

"jeatock", thank you for your above post (#16). You put it very well in trying to explain here that the days of Fire Station Sirens have gone by the wayside. Along with the Horsedrawn Steamers. But I think there are many parts in the State of Connecticut where we haven't quite caught up with the real world yet.

Somebody mentioned earlier here about New London County (Connecticut). I had worked as a part time 911 dispatcher there back in the 1990s, and it was there, that the use of fire station sirens was starting to end for one town in New London County. Of course today their station siren does NOT exist and they seem to be one of the FEW who have moved on in time.

Another interesting fact about that town. They had two stations and about 10 years later I worked at a large company directly across the street from one of their fire stations. I would see and hear the fire trucks go out all the time. A few paid guys on weekdays, but when an incident came in, the volunteer firefighters would come to the station to pick up the apparatus and respond to the call. Actually, I think that was around 2006, 2007 when I worked there. It seemed then to me, that they had no problem with missing any calls even though there was no station siren.

Most of the other departments here in New London County still refuse to accept the fact that the fire station sirens are no longer needed. In some parts of the state they disappeared many years ago. No one misses them. No citizens care. And many younger members today never even heard a station siren go off in their district. They all grew up without them. Yet they are all still very capable of responding to every incident and never miss one call without them.

If your department or dispatch center still operates with the use of fire station sirens, you should be very proud to call yourself a part of "The Dinosaur Generation". Yes, you are a part of it. You too must remember the good ole' days of those old mills in full operation. As well as things like black and white TV long before color and cable existed. And making sure you had a dime in your pocket to make a phone call at a local phone booth before cell phones. Yes, some of us still remember that from back in the 50s and 60s. Just like we remember those old fire station sirens too.

 

[kayn1n32008]

"jeatock", thank you for your above post (#16). You put it very well in trying to explain here that the days of Fire Station Sirens have gone by the wayside. Along with the Horsedrawn Steamers. But I think there are many parts in the State of Connecticut where we haven't quite caught up with the real world yet.

Somebody mentioned earlier here about New London County (Connecticut). I had worked as a part time 911 dispatcher there back in the 1990s, and it was there, that the use of fire station sirens was starting to end for one town in New London County. Of course today their station siren does NOT exist and they seem to be one of the FEW who have moved on in time.

Another interesting fact about that town. They had two stations and about 10 years later I worked at a large company directly across the street from one of their fire stations. I would see and hear the fire trucks go out all the time. A few paid guys on weekdays, but when an incident came in, the volunteer firefighters would come to the station to pick up the apparatus and respond to the call. Actually, I think that was around 2006, 2007 when I worked there. It seemed then to me, that they had no problem with missing any calls even though there was no station siren.

Most of the other departments here in New London County still refuse to accept the fact that the fire station sirens are no longer needed. In some parts of the state they disappeared many years ago. No one misses them. No citizens care. And many younger members today never even heard a station siren go off in their district. They all grew up without them. Yet they are all still very capable of responding to every incident and never miss one call without them.

If your department or dispatch center still operates with the use of fire station sirens, you should be very proud to call yourself a part of "The Dinosaur Generation". Yes, you are a part of it. You too must remember the good ole' days of those old mills in full operation. As well as things like black and white TV long before color and cable existed. And making sure you had a dime in your pocket to make a phone call at a local phone booth before cell phones. Yes, some of us still remember that from back in the 50s and 60s. Just like we remember those old fire station sirens too.

I live about 30-40m away from the firehall in my hamlet. They still ise a siren to alert for fire calls. This is in addition to the radio.

 

[radioman2001]

I may not be from CT, but I live close enough and in what is now a bedroom community and no longer a farm one to comment on this. I agree that if the locals don't like the siren move or join, since we are up they should be too. As some one stated too many city types moving in for the clean air and less traffic, and then trying to mold your town to what they like about city life, but I'll bet less than 50% know that you are volunteer to start with. So why not join and help improve your community.

I was probably one of the lone desenter for shutting off the sirens in our town, we have six of them total for a 54 sq mile district, and yes we have pagers and cell aps and computers, but during the last 3 times when a real emergency ocured cell phones bit the dust and wouldn't work for a dam. 9/11 of course and then the blackout of 2003, but the little shakes in 2009 in DC caused cell phones in NYC area to puke. Pretty bad that a small incident in DC will kill cell phones in NY.

I had told my FD not to put too much faith in outside radio resources, but even after these incidents they still have as the main source of info cell phones instad of improving the radio system. After some pretty strong push back by myself and a few others who after thinking about it, our sirens were not taken out of service, but relagated to local severe event status. That is if a tornado or some other event occurs, or if the radio system fails they can be activated by radio or at the station itself. It's not the perfect solution but...

 

[dsalomon]

I live in an area where they just installed NEW sirens at NEW locations, as well as replaced old ones, all for more coverage than they had before. It's not a rural location, it's a small town. They test it once a week like clockwork, but never use it for callouts. It is used for weather emergencies, which I believe is appropriate use. There are often many people out in the parks and out walking in town during the day. Other than actually seeing/being involved in the actual weather event (i.e. look, mommy, a funny cloud going in a circle), the fire siren may be the only warning that some folks get that a weather emergency is about to happen locally. I think that's definitely appropriate use for the siren. Activating it for every 911 call is not necessary, as many folks have said, because all the personnel already have digital methods of getting notifications. I assume that the digital notifications work well here as they do NOT use the horn. My local house does, however, use their vehicle horns EVERY TIME on EVERY CALL (I live close enough that I hear them go out right after I hear the call on my scanner). Frankly, I'd rather be annoyed by the sirens than have them lose valuable, life-saving time navigating traffic, even if it is only seconds. Think about it...fire departments are not called out unless there's a serious, often life-threatening event. If it's important enough to warrant fire equipment/personnel rolling out, it's important enough to get them to the even as quickly as possible. Seconds CAN make a difference, therefore a siren CAN also make a difference. Keep 'em blaring...it saves lives.

73 - David, AG4F

 

[DJ11DLN]

I live in an area where they just installed NEW sirens at NEW locations, as well as replaced old ones, all for more coverage than they had before. It's not a rural location, it's a small town. They test it once a week like clockwork, but never use it for callouts. It is used for weather emergencies, which I believe is appropriate use. There are often many people out in the parks and out walking in town during the day. Other than actually seeing/being involved in the actual weather event (i.e. look, mommy, a funny cloud going in a circle), the fire siren may be the only warning that some folks get that a weather emergency is about to happen locally. I think that's definitely appropriate use for the siren. Activating it for every 911 call is not necessary, as many folks have said, because all the personnel already have digital methods of getting notifications. I assume that the digital notifications work well here as they do NOT use the horn. My local house does, however, use their vehicle horns EVERY TIME on EVERY CALL (I live close enough that I hear them go out right after I hear the call on my scanner). Frankly, I'd rather be annoyed by the sirens than have them lose valuable, life-saving time navigating traffic, even if it is only seconds. Think about it...fire departments are not called out unless there's a serious, often life-threatening event. If it's important enough to warrant fire equipment/personnel rolling out, it's important enough to get them to the even as quickly as possible. Seconds CAN make a difference, therefore a siren CAN also make a difference. Keep 'em blaring...it saves lives.

73 - David, AG4F

Excellent points. A few of us here have been lobbying to get the non-functional FD sirens fixed and the missing ones, like ours, replaced for this purpose. The county has a few tornado sirens; they are pager-activated. Ours was never operated this way, the only way to activate it was to press the switch. We had an old-fashioned box on the outside wall so that someone without a phone could physically go to the house and "break glass in case of fire." For many years we relied on fire conference lines...into the late 1980s before we got a unified fire dispatch system. So unless somebody broke the glass it was almost never used in the middle of the night anyway, everybody had got the word on the fire conference. During daytime hours, if you were at home where you could hear your phone ring, fine...if not, you might not know there was a run unless the apparatus came your way. With pagers and cellular that's no longer an issue today, but using the fire whistles as disaster warnings for the general public is IMHO fully justified. Installing the necessary gear to allow them to activate with the tornado sirens is neither prohibitively expensive nor difficult. And they should be exercised weekly; the biggest problem we had with ours was it being unable to spin when activated because the critters had decided to make a home in the rotors and stators despite the screen wire. Same thing goes for electronic ones, if it doesn't work when needed, it's useless. A weekly test will detect problems, hopefully before it is needed.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Our siren can be triggered two ways, manually by a button just inside the door, or remotely by telephone.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[BoxAlarm187]

I agree that if the locals don't like the siren move or join, since we are up they should be too.

Why should your neighbors (and their infant children, dogs, and everyone else in the home) be forced to wake up because someone else miles away happened to have an emergency?

 

[Kitn1mcc]

One of the reasons the sirens are still around in CT is due to a little company located in chester ct. Also a few years ago when CT Yankee closed down CL&P/NU took down the sirens for the plant. The towns were given a choice keep the sirens and you maintain them or we will just take them down. The ones that were taken down ended up in out small bone yard in East Hampton and we get parts out and fix the ones for the towns.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Why should your neighbors (and their infant children, dogs, and everyone else in the home) be forced to wake up because someone else miles away happened to have an emergency?

Because it is reliable, not members have radios, and our other notification method is not 100% reliable. I knew there was a siren, and what its purpose is BEFORE i moved into my house. If people do not like it tough @#$&. When it goes of someone is in a bad way. People can suck it up. For the couple times a month it is not a huge deal.

 

[W4PHI]

I know the agencies around here have done away with them. And most agencies around here have also done away with "Home Response". If you're not at the station when the call comes out, maybe you can catch the next one. We have an increasing number of career Firefighters, EMTs, and Paramedics, that makes the volunteers "fill-ins".

 

[georged4997]

There a thing of the past. As I said before. Theres Pagers.,Cell phones, Scanners, Plectrons.
Two way radios. Its almost 2016. Not 1930. Time to move on. I could see using them to notify
the public of a big storm , But that's it. There annoying . Having to wake up in the middle of the night.
Then 5or 10 min again it goes off because no one showed up.

 

[sefrischling]

Plectrons? Yes I know what a Plectrons are ... but with pagers, mobile phones and scanners, who still uses a Plectron? The company closed sometime in the early 90s.

 

[sefrischling]

I know the agencies around here have done away with them. And most agencies around here have also done away with "Home Response". If you're not at the station when the call comes out, maybe you can catch the next one. We have an increasing number of career Firefighters, EMTs, and Paramedics, that makes the volunteers "fill-ins".

But up here in Connecticut ... since this was posted in Connecticut ... we have many volunteer only departments, as well as a number of mixed career + volunteer departments (my town is this way), and yes we have full-time career departments also. Even the mixed career+vollie departments tone out because for a structure fire the two paid guys on shift can't handle the call, you need more than an officer and chauffeur.

 

[radioman2001]

Qutoe"
There a thing of the past. As I said before. Theres Pagers.,Cell phones, Scanners, Plectrons.
Two way radios. Its almost 2016. Not 1930. Time to move on. I could see using them to notify
the public of a big storm , But that's it. There annoying . Having to wake up in the middle of the night.
Then 5or 10 min again it goes off because no one showed up."

Until they don't work for some reason not even to do with your locality. Reread my earlier posts, putting your lives and that of you residents in the hands of a company that's more interested in profit over ensuring that at least the batteries at their plants are charged. Do a Google on problems with Verizon and 911 systems all over the country. Your right it's not the 1930's but at least then the telephone company was an upstanding company that cared about it's systems.

You mention that no one showed up, well maybe if you joined as others that complain should it wouldn't have to go to 2nd and 3rd call. The alternative is what they left the city for, a career department, and guess what the cost will raise your taxes by 5 to 6 times over, our department did a study and found the fire tax would rise by 7 fold with a small 4-5 man complement during the daytime at one million dollars a man to start. Is that what having your peace and quiet is worth?

Quote"
Why should your neighbors (and their infant children, dogs, and everyone else in the home) be forced to wake up because someone else miles away happened to have an emergency?"

Why not, it has been that way from long before you were born, and I guarentee that if we didn't notify and protect that same public we would be sued for negligence. I suspect you might be from a city and not from the country where people do care about each other and community. Isn't that the reason you moved there?

On the use of sirens on apparatus, well here in NY and in NYC too if you don't and you get in an accident it's now your fault no matter what. I suspect it's the same all over the country, and I don't see them complaining to the Police over their use of sirens. So it's either full lights and sirens or move with traffic no in between.

This has been a hot topic for at least the last 20 years as the city enviroment moves outward. Letting your public know that you are volunteer and this is the last line of notification for you. To all that complain about these sirens, you knew they were there before you moved in, and why not join to make your community better instead of being johnny come lately and try and mold to what YOU like as opposed what is best for everyone overall.

 

[MrAntiDigital]

I enjoy reading all the comments TRYING to justify this antique, outdated system, of notifying it's members of an emergency or an incident in town.

What hurts anyone's case in defending these fire station sirens is the fact that so many other towns have removed them over the years. With absolutely no effect on a response to an emergency call whatsoever. Volunteer firefighters across many states, not just in Connecticut tell me "we've gotten rid of those sirens years ago". My point is this, "if they can do it, why can't the others". Some departments only within a few miles of each other.

In the above quote by "sefrisching" I would just like to add. One of the departments that has done away with those station sirens operates just like one that he mentions. One or two paid guys only, with all of the rest of the response coming from volunteer firefighters. Yet, in the last 10 years or so, they have operated very well WITHOUT the use of any Fire Station Siren.

Someone mentioned about moving away if you don't like the siren. The town that I own and rent out two apartments is in the same town I mentioned earlier about the siren breaking down, fixing it, and then breaking down AGAIN. The only thing that many of my tenants have complained about over the years is that siren waking them up. It is still broke and out of service. As a result, I know of two families that seem to be a little happier. It's a nice place to live and raise a family. They like it there. EXCEPT for ONE THING that wakes the kids and everybody else up at night. And don't try to talk on the cell phone outside when that thing is going off two blocks away. That is just about impossible.

So I just wanted to pass it down to let some individuals know just how others might feel. Of course they respect and appreciate what those firefighters do. That is NOT the issue. But they also know that there are other ways of doing business.

Trying to defend such an outdated system today might not be the way to go. Fire Chiefs used to use loudspeaker bullhorns instead of portable radios to get their messages across on the fireground. Bullhorns and fire station sirens worked very well then.

Let's add to the topic without drifting away from it. If you still depend on fire station sirens, do you continue to use bull horns on the fire ground in your department instead of portable radios ? If you do, please let us know.

 

[902]

I'll bite.

Yeah, I had to think about commenting before biting, too.

I was an Assistant Chief of a small combination fire department in Northeastern NJ. A complement of career firefighters (used to) staff the first-due apparatus and a BLS ambulance. Off duty career firefighters and volunteer firefighters were called in for reported structure fires and multiple alarms. This is similar to many departments in CT.

Historically, the department issued Minitor pagers to the career firefighters and Plectrons to the volunteers. Sirens were sounded first to get volunteers to be near their Plectrons or scanners, then the announcement was sent. Eventually, the low band frequency the Plectrons operated on was deprecated and all firefighters were issued Minitors.

At that point, there was discussion about "blowing out" (the whole process of alerting and activating the sirens). There was also an increase in smoke alarm activations in the growing number of high rise buildings. The result was that "fires" (visible flames and/or multiple reports of smoke) and additional alarms ("second alarm" recall of personnel, etc.) would have a siren activation. We also shortened the time the sirens were blowing from 4 cycles, pause for 1 cycle, then another 4 cycles to just one round of 4 cycles. There was no siren activation for EMS calls, and no siren activation for activated fire alarms or smoke from cooking (unless there was fire spread). It wasn't perfect, but it reduced the number of times it was blown.

So, what does siren activation do?

It P.O.s a number of people. Usually the same ones, and there are a lot of calls to the mayor and council. I'm amazed at why someone might deliberately move into an apartment that's near a pole siren and not expect it to go off once in a while, then demand its removal when it does. It's like moving next to a water tank and demanding the town move it. Nonetheless, there were some creative complaints - "Every time that thing hits a certain pitch, my dishes break!" Or, "My baby vibrated from one end of the crib to the other!" I wish I had the Dictaphone tapes from way back.

I thought some of them were gags, but they weren't (you don't want to laugh at a complainer unless you want them to go off at you like a shrieking wolverine). I can only picture a baby vibrating from one side of a crib to the other, or some woman breaking the China just to have some broken dishes to show us. "SEE?!"

For 15 years of being on the FD prior to moving, hearing the sirens go off has alerted me to listen up. Even if I'm in a situation where I can't immediately leave, I turned on the radio and monitored. If additional personnel were needed, I was usually ready to go. Yes, the pager could have done that, but sometimes I went outside, had to turn it off (i.e., church - nobody likes the thing going off and having someone dramatically run out... not cool...) or I just didn't have it.

If I knew what was going on, and was already en route with a courtesy light on top of the car, having the pole sirens go off usually made people notice and pull to the side of the road. And most times not, or I'd hit the road after the siren had gone off for its 4 cycles.

We wished that hearing the siren go off in town would have brought a few people who were interested in joining the fire department in the door. Sadly, signs and sirens were not highly effective in recruiting members.

Those were personal reasons and each of them could be shot down pretty effectively. The main reason for keeping them has been brought up in other posts. ISO, the Insurance Services Office, rates the community on several variables. Those include things like water supply, apparatus, personnel, and communications. ISO bases their scoring of communications on NFPA 1221 and other standards so that if an independent alerting system were not maintained, the class of the community is higher (a worse number). They consider the community to not have required redundancy. When that happens, everyone's insurance goes up. In fact, we had "supervision" current on the activation circuits so that we could tell if there was no power at the pole or if the tie-line was interrupted in any way. A light for each of the two sirens would come on in the "radio room" letting us know that we had to have them checked.

So, it's a balancing act for the mayor and council (or the elected fire board). It literally comes down to this: "Do you want to have a few complaints a year from a handful of people because a fire siren woke them up during an emergency in town, or do you want continual complaints from your businesses and residents - maybe even have them move out of town - because their insurance premiums could be lower?"

There was one use that the kids loved. Parents maybe not so much. "The sirens will be blown for no school." Usually a sustained 15 second sounding at around 7 AM on snow days.

 

[sefrischling]

In the above quote by "sefrisching" I would just like to add. One of the departments that has done away with those station sirens operates just like one that he mentions. One or two paid guys only, with all of the rest of the response coming from volunteer firefighters. Yet, in the last 10 years or so, they have operated very well WITHOUT the use of any Fire Station Siren.

1) As stated, my town has a fire siren with PA that is used almost exclusively to alert the town that there is an escape from the York Correctional Facility. Someone comes up unaccounted for, the siren goes off, school's lock the doors. The siren is never used to alert Fire-EMS of a call, Fire & EMS personnel all have Minitor pagers.

2) The only time I have ever heard the fire siren used outside of an escaped prisoner was during Hurricane Irene and the loud and clear PA message for everyone to shelter in place.

 

[cavmedic]

This is like reading about Baeofangs in a Motorola Forum.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kayn1n32008]

I enjoy reading all the comments TRYING to justify this antique, outdated system, of notifying it's members of an emergency or an incident in town.

You may look at as 'justifying' it. I do not. My department does use the siren, and will continue using it. My department can not afford to provide a radio to every member to take home. We do not use 2 tone, and with our system change coming soon we will not be using 2 tone. Cellular text messaging is not reliable, I have seen instances of text taking hours to deliver, when in the same room as the person being sent the message. Even after we go from a single county wide repeater to a multi site DMR system. Considering your handle, I'm surprised you are so against an antiquated system, considering you are so against modern radio technology.

What hurts anyone's case in defending these fire station sirens is the fact that so many other towns have removed them over the years.

What works for one department, may not work for another. The fire service is steeped in history and tradition. And it may simply be for those reasons they maintain the siren.

Yet, in the last 10 years or so, they have operated very well WITHOUT the use of any Fire Station Siren.

Good for them.

Let's add to the topic without drifting away from it. If you still depend on fire station sirens, do you continue to use bull horns on the fire ground in your department instead of portable radios ? If you do, please let us know.

Apples to oranges. One is not related to the other.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[kmacinct]

Text message notification failed today - due to an issue with Verizon - not with the Software or the Dispatch.

The members got the call because they heard the siren going off. WOW!