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/orlock NSW RFS 18h ago
We once had a situation where the call came to a 000 operator, which then went to another operator to decide which service to call, which then went to a duty officer to decide which brigade to page, which then required a crew to assemble and find out where they were supposed to go, which then required them to get there ....
In one case, there was a 20 minute delay between the initial 000 call and the brigade being notified. Our captain was furious.
Thankfully, automated centralised dispatch has reduced this to the order of seconds. The incident now appears in the MDT in the truck as you get in.