Why does Adair Fire still use the roof siren?

 

Adair Fire is a volunteer department, and our station only has a few personnel on site about 30+ hours a week. The siren is one of three ways our firefighters are alerted at home to respond to a call. We also have a cell phone alerting application and old-school pagers. By design, all three work together as a system to make sure we don’t miss a call.

The Siren’s time-tested technology is the most reliable, and it’s always on duty. Cell phone and pager batteries can die. As hard as we try, mobile devices can be silent mode, in a place, or an environment where they will not be noticed. Every responder has examples of times the siren was our only notification of a call.

Over the years the siren’s duration has been cut in half. The decibel level has been tested and found to be non-harmful based on volume and duration. We currently silience it at nighttime between 11:00pm and 6:00am when our volunteers can purposefully make sure their phones and pagers are properly set-up near their beds.

The siren is not used for tradition. We understand that it can be an inconvenience, but hope everyone can see the emergency benefit of the siren ensuring the quickest response to your emergency.