The Siren Board

This question have been eating me up.... When a siren goes off for a "Fire call" what does that exactly mean, does it go off every time there is a house fire? That question is just killing me..

In my part of the world at least the fire siren is activated for all calls the fire dept. runs. This includes crashes, gas calls, rescues, haz-mat calls and of course fires.

Valtonus wrote:This question have been eating me up.... When a siren goes off for a "Fire call" what does that exactly mean, does it go off every time there is a house fire? That question is just killing me..

It is the individual fire department's or the county fire dispatch's decision as to what they set their siren off for. Some will do it for every call 24 hours a day (medical call, car accident,alarm system activation, fuel spill, brush fire, whatever). Some will only do it for confirmed house/building fires, as they don't happen too often so the siren isn't blowing 5-6 times a day for the more frequent type of calls. A lot of FD's are starting to put timers on their systems that "lock" the siren during certain hours so it won't go off at night. It keeps the neighbors happy.

The jurisdiction (city council, fire district, etc.) that oversees the fire dept., has the say over whether the siren is activated for fire, rescue, etc. calls. I have also seen it spelled out in particular ordinances, where the fire chief may be responsible over the siren system.

Anyway, the responsible party that oversees the siren system, determines when (day, night, etc.) and for what calls (fire, rescue, etc.) the siren sounds for. Each community (city, township, fire district, etc.) has its own policy.

Basically, pagers may not be effective in some communities, so sirens are also sounded. If a siren paging tower is far away, hills or tall building(s) are impeding, etc. may result in a lack of pager coverage. In some cases, outdoor warning sirens are also used to supplement or backup a paging system.

Contact your local fire chief and inquire for what and when the sirens are used. That will clarify why (or a lack of) sirens are activated.

Most of the Fire Departments I've been a member of only used them for structure fires. Most of those departments don't even do that now. Sounding the siren for medical calls 6 times a day would wear thin pretty quick in most towns. Most small departments in my neck of the woods don't even run the siren on the apparatus in the middle of the night unless necessary.

The town of Scio, Oregon, sounded their Model 5 in three cycles of attack for ambulance and five cycles for fires, and they may still do this. Nearby Silverton, however, only sounds their M5 at noon and for very severe fires. Every town does it differently here, and most Oregon towns don't use fire sirens at all.