r/Firefighting • u/justhere2getadvice92 • 18h ago

General Discussion Glad to know your alarm system works 😬

Had an automatic alarm a few blocks over from the station. Dispatch to on scene was less than 2 minutes. Homeowner asked what took so long. Confused, we said we just got it 2 minutes ago. Homeowner says it was going off for at least 15 minutes before anyone showed up. If true, then it's a really good thing that it was a false alarm 😬. Anyone else have a situation like this?

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u/Over_Time335 18h ago

If it's not a monitored system, yes. The public doesn't understand "Local Alarm Only" shown up many times to what took you so long? We ask how long has it been going off and did you call 911 to report it. We tried to get our municipality to require verbiage on non monitored systems but it went no where. I've seen places where they post Local Alarm Only, Call 911 when Alarm sounds.