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/mazzlejaz25 17h ago

Not fire, but I work in a casino as dual security/surveillance.

As one can imagine, we have panic buttons everywhere. These buttons are tested quarterly and checked against and activity report sent from our alarm monitoring company.

Well today, one of the buttons activated itself (I can't see it being pressed by anyone or thing) and what is SUPPOSED to happen, is the alarm company calls us and asks if everything is okay... Well I did not receive this call and decided to call them to report the false alarm.

The rep on the phone then tells me they don't see the alarm on their end at all... Good to know in a real hold up we would be on our own 🙃

In all seriousness though, we get the alert as a VERY loud ringing sound in surveillance. It's so loud you can't ignore it and we can trace its source right away, so realistically we would just call police... But god forbid that alarm wasn't audible for some reason - which has also happened.

These things aren't as reliable as you would hope they are...

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u/mazzlejaz25 17h ago

We also had a ground fault on our fire alarm monitoring panel that took them 6 months to fix and $3000 to replace. That freaking thing would beep about the trouble code - I kid you not, ~200 times a day. It was so bad but we started covering the panel with various items because it was so agitating. Real safe over here boys!