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The fire house siren
At the present time, with all of our members equipped with pagers, there are still some situations where a member hears the fire house siren and not the pager. The folks across the road complained about it once but its like "hey, didn't you notice you were buying property across from a fire house?"
How many departments out there still have their siren blow for fire and emergency calls?
How many departments out there still have their siren blow for fire and emergency calls?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by LadyChaplain on
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We do... most of the time. It'll blow for any alarm of fire day or night, and then most EMS/Rescue during daylight hours.
I wouldn't have it any other way. Not only have I grown up with that whistle in my back yard, but I have found that it elicits a better blue light response from people. I know that when I have my blue light on and the siren is going, people on the road are more likely to give me a break vs. when I just have my blue light on. I think it lets them know that there is something legitimate going on.
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Permalink Reply by Dennis Mallery on
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We currently use both our siren as well as pagers. The siren's been there for close to 50 years and as far as I know there's only been one comment, and they knew the siren went off for calls when they moved in across the road. One new member, who also lives across the road, stated he never noticed the siren blowing at night but now is up and dressed as soon as he hears it start to crank up. Even in the days of pagers, the siren still has it's uses.
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Permalink Reply by Ruck on
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Here every department in our county is equipped with a siren, and it blows in emergent situations. However we are in a fight with our County Commission about it. They are trying to take away all of the depatments sirens, saying that "they are for natural disaster situations (i.e. tornados, hurricanes, etc.) First off I live in WV, not to many tornados, and deffinately not hurricanes. We like you, use the siren for letting our FFs know when there is a call, and it also alerts the public to expect to see some big trucks with pretty flashy-flashies come through town, and to clear the streets. We are a Vollie Dept, so it isn't like we are always there at the station to get out the door right away. We have to come from wherever to get to the station so that we can get the apparatus, then go to the call. The people complaining about your siren need to realize that if it were there house on fire, or they were trapped in a car needing help, wouldn't they want you to be able to get there as fast as possible?
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Permalink Reply by Terry Lambert on
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We have a siren out side of our station, but I think it does not work anymore. We all have pagers.
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Permalink Reply by Spanner 122 on
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We have tones that sound. They designed not to scare the crap out of you in the middle of the night, and gradually get louder. It's something to do with the pitch apparently. It only sounds outside when the PA system is on. We rarely leave the watch un-manned, so the neighbours have very little to worry about. What they complain about here is the chainsaws and running up the trucks in the mornings. We try to wait until an appropriate hour, but when you start at 6:30 and need to check the rig before you get called anywhere, that can sometimes be tough! Oh well... as mentioned, they saw the firehall when they bought and were probably happy to have help so close.
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence W on
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We have three sirens set up, one at the firehouse and two on opposite ends of town. We are a fully volunteer company (fire/rescue side - county provides EMS) and not all of our members have pagers. There has been more than one time where we have asked for pagers back from members that have not been responding so that those that are responding more often can have one.
In my area, the siren is important to let members, as well as the public, know that there is an emergency somewhere in our first due area. This allows for unmarked personal vehicles with their hazard lights on an little leeway. My company does not allow us to mark our personal vehicles for emergency response.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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We had the same issue. The siren was determined to be loud and obnoxious, so now it only has a single rev up for the 7pm tone test. I like having the siren as opposed to not having it, with the radio frequency's being the way they are, even your pager isn't foolproof. You can hear the siren when working on the yard and know somethings up.
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Permalink Reply by phinzup911 on
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We used to have a siren at our old firehouse. I miss hearing it wail!! I grew up listening to a siren alert and was excited when we first joined our dept years ago and they used the siren too. Over the years though they got away from using it, and we don't even know if it worked anymore. Everyone has radios now and no one else uses sirens.
Of course, with the tornados we had in Feb. here, who knows! They mey install sirens for that and we'll get to here them tested!!
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Permalink Reply by firefighter444 on
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we do for all of our calls
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Permalink Reply by Robert B Pierce on
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We still use both, last fall I was cutting firewood at my house. I shut off the chainsaw and heard the fire siren going off. I jumped in the truck and headed to the station only to meet the trucks headed towards me. Turns out the call was at my neighbors. Just last week my pager somehow got shut off and the siren woke me up. We occasioaly will have someone complain and we explain that the pagers do not always work.
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