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Remember As A Kid
When I was a kid in a small town in North Carolina back in the late 50s to the early 60s when the fire whistle you could turn the am radio to the local radio station in town and they would come on and tell where the fire was in town. This was before pagers and alert radios so that the town's volunteers knew where to go. They also told the public the laws about following fire apparatus and running over fire hose.
Now when I was a member of the fire dept and went to the Maryland State Firemens' Convention in Ocean City, MD in the early mid 70s the towns fire whistles blew and the local radio station told where the fire was in town and the same laws.
Anyone else remember their area doing the same type of thing or something different.
Maybe something their local fire dept did when they were a kid that is interesting.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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How old is that thing?
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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on
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I remember the old "Air Raid" air horns blaring as a test of our Tsunami alert system.
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Permalink Reply by John Sees on
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Samething happen in my home town. The station was built in the 60's and had a house siren.
Then in the late 90's someone bought a house next to the station, then complained about the siren. We also had a guy complain about the "Q" on the engine being used in the afternoon when leaving the station. The station has a major highway in front of it and I blew the "Q" when needed, well after he complained I didn't care what time it was 1 or 2 in the morning or in the afternoon I made sure that the "Q" was working. Here too the wives always showed up with food and drinks, but as members stopped running the wives stopped showing up and the younger ones never started. It is one of things that I miss.
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Permalink Reply by ashfire on
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When we moved to Maryland outside Washington DC in the early 60s, our house is a mile from the station. When the siren went off you could stand on the porch and watch the volunteers come down the road with their cars and the blue lights past the house to the station. You could hear the other stations in the area with theirs going so you could figure it was something big.
I remember when the station got a new siren that had a new sound to it which is still mounted to the pole next to the hose tower. The Federal siren they got had the Hi-LO sound compared the stright tone.
Like everything the public had the county stop using them including all the air raid sirens that were placed at other locations in the county. We can still push a few buttons and make our siren work in the station but last time we tried it hasn't worked. I think the birds and dirt have clogged it up. Some stations still use them for fire dept funeral processions and some further south in the county still use thier's for calls. If it blew once it was a ambulance call, twice for vehicle accident, three for a fire.
I been up to my brother's place in Virginia and the station siren there would run until all the crews got there and the units on the run left the station.
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Permalink Reply by Tiger Schmittendorf on
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I've heard of a lot of early "alerting systems" but I've never heard of broadcasting the call location over an AM radio frequency. That's cool.
You all sound like what I call "Run to the Curb" type kids. I'd love for you to share your childhood memories at my web site: www.runtothecurb.com.
Look for my article of the same title in the March edition of Fire-Rescue Magazine.
Stay safe. Train often.
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With the local radio station there would be a alert type of sound then the radio announcer would come on " To all member of the XX fire dept, you have a xx fire at xxx xxxxx xxx. All motorist please yield to the fire trucks and please stay back at 300 feet from the rear of responding trucks and running over fire hose is a fine of $$$$$$ by state law."
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That's hilarious and very cool all at the same time.
I've featured a link to this discussion at www.runtothecurb.com and another link will be published to FireEMS Blogs on Saturday.
I think this is a great story. Please consider expanding on it for inclusion in my online story book project. Send photos too!
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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Station sirens are still in use around here. Personally, I am not a big fan. With the money spent on pager systems, I see no valid reason to disrupt an entire community at all hours for a fire department response. If the members are too lazy or irresponsible to carry pagers, take them away, and take them off the active rolls.
My memories are of the street box 'Gamewell' telegraph systems. I think I memorized dozens of box number locations. I own 2 complete sytems today that all work.
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One thing back then if you needed a ambulance, in North Carolina back when I was a kid you called the funeral home for an ambulance. In our town we had two funeral homes, each had a ambulance. The only time I remember see one of them in action was a two car accident down the street from my house involving the daughter of our family doctor. The town police came but the fire dept didn't come to the accident. I don't think anyone called them unless there was a fire. The tow company in town had a red light instead of yellow on their tow truck. Back then ambulance crews had for training was American First Aid or none and you can guess how a patient was handled compared to today.
I got hurt one time when I stuck my fingers in a laundry wringer of my mother washing machine while it was running. The thing pulled me off a chair until it popped open. My mom called the doctor and he called the funeral home and they sent their driver in his own car to take my mom, my younger brother and me to the hospital. The only time I seen the fire dept in action was when a shack across the street caught fire near the house and a grass fire the next street behind where we lived. One thing I do remember is that if you lived outside the town you paid fire tax for the fire dept to come out to put out a fire. If you didn't the forest rangers came to put out the fire. One woman didn't and that was what happened and she burned up in the house.
The town had four units. A 195x Ford pumper and a 195x American La France pumper and a early model Ford pickup truck and a 1920 pumper. The 50s units were kept in the second fire station which was built in front of the first fire station which had the 1920 pumper and the pickup. They were separate buildings.
Last time I was down there the old station was turned into a pub and the other building was still behind it. They built another fire station but gave that to public works and a new station was built where public works use to be on the street that is close to US 1 near the bridge that separated the town from the westside of town. The dept has more unit today and still has the old 1920 pumper on display in its own area.
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There is a website http://www.airraidsirens.com where they have pictures and sounds of air raid or firehouse sirens. Maybe you will find the one your station has had or still does.
The ones my fire company has had would be the Federal Model 5 and the one still there the 3T22.
One thing I notice on the way to work on the week days when I pass the military base you can hear reveille all over the base at 7AM over the new loud speaker warning system they put around the base to replace the sirens so they could deliver messages along with warnings sounds.
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