Well here, we use 3 different ways to alert firefighters to an alarm.
Siren: it wails 5 times. We want it to be more, but the city officials say its "annoying" because it might wake people up in the middle of the night or bug peoples "quite time. I mean god forbid. :weird:
Cellphone/SMS: when kentcenter (dispatch/911) pages us out, this SMS message is suppose follow.
"Dispatch: 42F
Alarm: structure fire (unknown)
Location: 1234 steet
Sub: super valley
X (cross street): you suck lane, wacker way"
Caller: Betty Lou call-a-lot"
If there's any additional information we may need, they'll put it in their too.
Pager: Kentcenter will push the approiate station botton on their callboard, which activates the tones. From there it goes something like this.
Station 42, you have an alarm - structure fire, confirmed - 123 street- subdivsion, supper valley - cross streets of you suck lane, wacker way - all responding units switch to Tac 4
Then if an officer doesn't notify kentcenter that we have a crew forming and or responding within 5 min they call then station, if no one picks up they do a second alarm and do a first alarm for a second station.
When a piece is ready to respond we say this to dispatch:
Kentcenter - 42-5 responding (include officers number) - crew of (XX)
Then when we get on scene, we tell this to to dispatch.
Kentcenter - 42-5 on scene (include officer number) - single story, single family dwelling - heavy fire and smoke showing from alpha bravo side - no obvious hazards - requesting mutual aid (if needed) - establishing command