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House sirens?
Hey guys, A long time ago, i remember my firehouse (before i even joined)
used to sound the sirens, at the house, to alert firefighters to fires, i believe, and they used to do it at noon too.. But they don't do it anymore. No fire company in the area does it anymore, only for some parades. Why is this? i mean, we have pagers to alert us but didn't the sirens serve another purpose too?
I miss them, that was such a rush! :P
used to sound the sirens, at the house, to alert firefighters to fires, i believe, and they used to do it at noon too.. But they don't do it anymore. No fire company in the area does it anymore, only for some parades. Why is this? i mean, we have pagers to alert us but didn't the sirens serve another purpose too?
I miss them, that was such a rush! :P
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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We still have them...and I can hear it at my house which is about 3 miles from the Firehouse.....It used to be a joke around town...The people would tell newcomers to our town "When you hear the siren get your kids off the sidewalk" Driving used to be a little wild getting to calls...there is a bridge through the center of town and rumor has it that at times there would be 3 cars abreast crossing it to get to the Firehouse...(Not the case anymore)and more than one car would "catch air" going over the railroad tracks....Stay safe and remember to always Keep the Faith.....Paul
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Permalink Reply by 144Truck on
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We no longer use the house siren... Pagers rendered it obsolete. We did however, leave the installation intact as there may be disaster preparedness usefulness.
The sirens (We had three at one time) were pared down to one in the late 70's. The siren(s) used to sound for all calls 24x7, then reduced to fire and extrication calls, then quiet hours of 2200 to 0600 arrived, later expanded to 1800 to 0600.
We then came under some NIMBY opposition to the siren (It was even vandalized) so we re-evaluated its' continued usefulness.
Since all members carry pagers, we "Mothballed" the siren around 2000.
(We are in New England so the weather siren use is unheard of here)
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Permalink Reply by Don Vuletic on
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We have pagers and house siren. Its used for fire calls only.
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Permalink Reply by LadyChaplain on
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We still have the classic "air-raid" siren. You can hear it from quite a distance as well. We still have pagers, but I know during the summer, a lot of the firefighters depend on it when they are outside doing yardwork, etc when it's not conducive to carry a pager. Generally speaking, our air-raid siren will blow for any call between sunrise and 9pm (both fire and ems), but then at any hour of the day or night if we have a confirmed structure fire.
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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The old siren that sat on top of the old town hall is sequestered at the moment. We are going to re-do it and put it at the fire station as a monument to our current and past firefighters. We are going to landscape it and put benches near it as a "thank you" to our volunteers.
We have a new siren that is activated from the county PSAP, police car or fire station.
Pretty cool.
TCSS.
Art
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Permalink Reply by jonathan on
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we use our siren to alert us to weather emergencys now but we also use it to alert us to fires but we also carry pagers an radios as well
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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There was a time when firefighters did not wear gloves or SCBA's... times change due to advances in technology... alerting firefighters in the 50's was pretty much isolated to a siren system and was considered a generally acceptable way for those times to alert folks.
Well, that was 50 years ago and technology including radios, pagers, email, twitter, blackberries, etc. mean that we really don't have to rely on the antiquated technology for notification.
With that said, there is still room for this old technology in wildland urban interfaces where low tech solutions can make a difference. The use of Reverse 911 is great until the fire knocks out the telephone lines or the system gets overloaded. Here in Santa Barbara, the recent Tea Fire that took out hundreds of homes in an evening has led to many discussions to bring back warning sirens to alert residents that there is a wildfire that could threaten homes.
Mike
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Permalink Reply by Ray on
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Untill the get squished by the train! then you will hear, well how come.....
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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I believe in certain parts of the country, like out in your area, that would be a fantastic idea. Perhaps with solar power in case the electricity got taken out.
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We have a 40K generator rigged up that will run the sirens and the power for the Firehouse in case of need Back a few years ago we had a severe ice storm and everyone lost power for like 2 weeks...we survived but we did upgrade our generator......Paul
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Permalink Reply by Kimberly A Bownas on
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We have a siren that use to be on the firehouse roof and now it is on a pole. The whistle blows for structure fires and it also blows at noon. It was stopped from going off at all even at noon and the businesses told the village it was their way of knowing when it was lunch time. The whistle blows once. Our whistle use to go off for all calls and then there were some people in the village that complained about the whistle going off in the middle of the night. So the Village asked to change when the whistle will blow. I like hearing the whistle blow and I my kids let me know when lunch is when they hear the whistle blows at noon....
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Permalink Reply by Avery Dale on
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We used to have a siren many years ago. We quit using it in the mid 80's with the introduction of pagers. I can still remember as a child though whenever there was a call dispatch would call the chief on the phone or over the radio and someone would go to the station and turn on the siren alerting everyone else. Needless to say response times have drastically improved since then.
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