SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Country Fire Service => Topic started by: Mike on April 10, 2005, 12:56:12 AM
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1: How many brigades are still using fire sirens?
I know we still have it connected to fixed alarms, for major daytime incidents and sounding fire ban days. As well as weekly testing...
2: What are peoples thoughts on the phasing out of these sirens?
Are they simply an annoyance to the community or is it a good way of letting people know somethings happening....
Peoples thoughts?
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We have reduced it to just big rural jobs, nothing else, and its very very effective, the community knows that when that siren goes something is wrong
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We have not used our siren in a year with the new pagers we only tend to use it if we cant get a crew. I would not like to see them removed as what happens if the pagers fail?? and there are still problems with the radio and pager system. The siren also is a reminder to the community that we are still there and that we do still go to call outs. Since the introduction of new pagers and GRN we tend to no longer use the siren and the community only knows if we have been to a call out if its on tv or in the paper.
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We don't use our siren either... (Although maybe thats because its broken :( )
I think sirens should still be used, so that the community knows that there is an incident happening, Even if it is just sounded when the first sitrep has come in, saying that its a going fire.
Like rescue5271 said, I know a lot of residents who are relying on the sirens to tell them there is a fire...
Good Times – when you say use it for “big rural jobs”, Does that mean you sound the siren once you realize that its big? or for any rural response?
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:roll: Sirens...mmmm big problem in my household! We live about 150m from the station and the siren, and it goes off almost daily, it's been hell with a baby under 1yrs trying to sleep during the day. Blackwood, Eden Hills and Belair sirens are all connected from when all three brigades we're automatically responded during daylight hours to any incident in any brigades area to address daytime crewing issues. The response griteria has changed, but not the siren. Belairs siren still goes off if Eden respond to a Animal Rescue or private alarm or whatever...Very annoying. Tried to get it changed to no outcome.
The siren system in Sturt group was turn off last year, but the community complained reasonably quickly. I was informed by a number of local residents that they find it reassuring to know that if something is happening, that the fire service is responding.
Personally I would like to see the siren used as a back up for communications (ie pager failure) and for a public notification for times of concern (going fire in local area). To enable this I feel manual activation at stations should remain for use under consultation with a Brigade Officer.
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CFS Firey , we use it when we realise the rural job is going to impact on property etc, pagers are not an issue here.
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When the new pagers were phased in, and shortly the Station Siren was reduced in its usage, i remember a friend of the family (who also lives close to the station) commenting with the following:
Friend: 'You guys haven't had many calls lately'
Me: ' We have a new pager system, and this means the siren isn't required unless the job is of larger magnitude, or coming towards "home"'
Friend: 'Oh good, casue I normally always ring when I hear the siren going, see if there is any help required, or if it's a big one and close to home"
Me: 'Yea, we get alot of people phone up when the siren is activated, knowing there must be something big, or close to the community....
So... In hindsight i think the removal of the Station Sirens would be a poor decision.
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For people that have lived in an area for a long time, there can be some comfort in knowing that the service is still there and are still active.
But what about new people that move into the area?
How do you get the information out there about what it means?
As james mentioned, the changing circumstances of those living around us.
We have mentioned it in the local paper a few times, although i sometimes wonder how effective it really is.
Personally I like them, and if the community remains well educated about what it all means, its a fantastic way of passing simple set public info messages.
more food for thought......
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I suspect that the decrease in siren use may be distancing the community from the CFS... Recently it has stuck me how little people know/care about the CFS... So many people don't fully understand what we do, and the number of times I am asked how much I get paid is unbelievable... I think Mike's right... People are moving into the area and with no sirens to remind them that we exist, they take us forgranted...
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I think that the sirens are a goodtool to alert people in the area that something is wrong and to start using the ACTION PLAN!! :lol:
Not everyone is going to have a pager, so they dont know if something is wrong or not. It is only when they hear a siren out the front of their house that they may relize and then i might be to late to do anything.
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It is only when they hear a siren out the front of their house that they may relize and then i might be to late to do anything.
Yeah, apparently in the Canberra fires a couple of years back, a resident knocked on his neighbours door to check that they were prepared for the approaching fire, and found them watching the TV. The nieghbour said to him, "Hey, have you seen the fires on the TV, they are unbeliavable".... the fire was only a block away at the time....
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We are attempting to start using ours again. We are to sound it between the hours of 9-5 only, I am usally at work, however on the weekends I can.
I think its a good idea as sometimes pagers may be out of range, yet members may still hear the siren, plus the siren also sends a page through so if you miss the first job page you may get the siren page.
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You will only recieve a second page if the siren is manually activated. The number of places where a siren can be heard but no paging are now few and far between (infact not really worth a hige amount of worry by my account)...... However you will find that a siren will always go off before the pagers, handy for a bit of a 'heads up' as such.
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It will only go off first if you manually activate it, not if its done from SHQ, but if you get SHQ to set it off make sure you get them to use the prefix URGMSG rather than CFSRES, the URGMSG code is what the decoder uses to set the siren off.
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Our siren is not set to go off with the pagers. We manually activate it on jobs, 9-5 only.
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Some brigades will do things differently.......In hindsight.........I think this is one 'tradition', or furthermore, notification device to the community - that something is happening..
If nothing else, some find it keeps people out of the way of the front od the station, and warns an appliance is exiting the doors.....
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I'm a bit slow to reply but we used to use ours but it started to make the Grey box on the wall smoke and spark. Still waiting for someone to come and fix it as they say there is not enough work for them just to come to our Group for one small problem.
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Even though the Kalangadoo community doesn't show much interest in the Kalangadoo CFS but whenever there is a shortage of crew on a really bad fire danger after the pagers have sounded requiring Kalangadoo 34's response we hit the siren then let to sound continuously until extra crew turn up and plus this catches the attention of town residents
We had to sound the siren mid last year around 8:00-9:00 am because we didnt have driver after several attempts to contact our brigade auxiliary truck drivers failed,we activated the siren and surely enough a truck driver who was the son of one of our brigade auxiliary members answered the siren call and manned the driving seat enabling Kalangadoo 34 to respond. Also i must note that we were called to a truck roll over on this morning none of our drivers failed to turn up after we were paged
Basically what i'm saying is that station sirens are very handy as there will be times when a brigade has a crew but no driver and will need to activate their station siren in a bid to get one regardless if they are a Civilian or Industrial truck drivers it doesnt really matter as long as they have a MR or HR truck licence
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regardless if they are a Civilian or Industrial truck drivers it doesnt really matter as long as they have a MR or HR truck licence
Ummmm....I think it does matter... But I guess that must be a "country" thing....
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I think the problem is that members are choosing there calls and since we went over to GRN pagers we dont use our siren, may be its time that the alerts system could activate the siren and open doors so members could get into the station. The community does not know how many calls we go to till some time later when its in the paper,summer is fast coming and I would hope that brigades will start to use there siren not only to get extra crew but to make the community know that we are on the job....
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We tend to give the siren a work out during summer, but we have been proactive in the community and now have them trained to know that when the siren goes there is a grass/scrub fire in the area that they should keep an eye on, and people are really happy with this idea.
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Our town have asked us not to use the siren after 2300hrs until 0700hrs unless there is something they need to know about or get ready to evacuate as a treated timber place has been put in just opposite the high school and just down from the middle of the town. But first we must get them in to get it fixed as it makes the gray box on the wall smoke up a bit. Shame we can not use local electricians on it.
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Just get it done mate.... Can;t exactly sack you over it.. :evil:
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Hi,
We very rarely use our sirens for callouts now, only for fixed alarms but they are all changing to this new fancy system now so not for long!
We also use it for training nights with the three wails, plus on total fire ban mornings. Our siren will not go off between 8:00 and 20:00 hours. Our community barely knows that we exist.......... i think.
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just for info:
there is a document regarding use of fire sirens... times/types/etc...
cant find it atm though..
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We use our siren only when we do not have enough crew on wail. Also on continues blast if the treated timber storage site is on fire as the town will need to be evacuated, so if the residence of the town hear that they know its time to start to get ready they may have to leave. Then they will get the police to tell them exactly when to go.
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Im in the same vote as Sam our community barely knows we exsist because it wont support us by becoming a volunteers or donating money
The only times we use it if theres a huge risk that a grass or scrub fire burning near the town has the potential to escalate in a wildfire and evacuations are needed
If we have a real bad shortage of crew after a call out is placed over our pagers
On a Wednesday night before the radio check
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Do It Every Call Out During the Day To Let The Community Know That We Are In Operation & To Be Aware, Also Helps For Thoughs Who Didn't Hear The Pager As It Also Sends A Second Message.
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As Medevac said, there is a document on the use of sirens.
Haven't got it with me but for memory the use of sirens was betwenn 0800 and 2000. Will have a look and post the exact times etc for peoples info. All Captains should have now received a copy of it.
Adam.
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Thought AF weren't soing this anymore :?
MFS: SIREN ACTIVATION *URGMSG:
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We still use our siren like most others mainly to get more crews, However our community actually want us to use it so that they are aware of something going on in the area. We had a stint a while back where the siren burnt out and so was off line for a time and we had complaints coming in from the community about it not being used before we could tell them it was broken.
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Thought AF weren't soing this anymore :?
MFS: SIREN ACTIVATION *URGMSG:
Back when SOC were incharge of our paging and radio call taking the Kalangadoo fire siren was linked up to the paging system so when a fire call happened both the pagers and station siren went off
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They aren't supposed to set the siren off but obviously some brigades put the guilts on and make them do it, on a visit I did of Comms, its not a simple thing to just set the siren off.
You can set your siren up to go off on CFSRES, or just go to the station and press the button.
Some brigades can't seem to understand that you need to do it yourself!!!!
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But sometimes you want the siren to go off, and other times you don't... so setting it to go off on CFSRES is not always going to suit.
Can I ask pumprescue, why is it not a simple thing to set the siren off? Surely a page with URGMSG it will do that, and putting that on a message is not too difficult? Or is there some issue with paging out messages...?
While it is easy to get the station & just press the button, I know in the case of my brigade, particularly during summer members go out gardening, mowing etc, and don't take their pagers with them (it prevents pagers from being chopped up by lawnmowers), but they can hear the siren...that few minutes delay for someone to get the the station to set the siren off may mean the rest of the brigade have a few minute delay before they know of an incident...
Pip
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Well my station has a timer set on the siren box so it won't go off between 7pm and 7am. Any reason you couldn't use that system, the crew that don't want to take their pagers outside the house would more than likely want to know about every call, so doesn't matter if it goes off every call.
From what I was told 99.9% of brigades don't care about the siren being set off, there is maybe 3 or 4 that still try and get it done.
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Ive probly said it before, but there is no need for sirens fullstop.
Everyone has pagers to notify them of firecalls, no excuse for not carrying them. And dont pull the comment that they fail, because there good enough for every other emergency service [MFS, SAAS, SES, VMR, etc etc]
Station sirens are NOT an official means of notifying the community of significant events. This is why we have EWMs and WAMs.
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Ive probly said it before, but there is no need for sirens fullstop.
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Station sirens are NOT an official means of notifying the community of significant events. This is why we have EWMs and WAMs.
Agree that it shouldn't be used for turn out, but we use purely for fires in the immediate area only. It's not an official means, but any additional means of notification should not be discounted. EWMs are only useful if people are listening to the radio stations that broadcast them, or get a phone call/sms from the new system.
If it is used sparingly, then when it goes of people will make an effort to see why. If it goes off for everything RCR or tree down then people will become compliance.
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Each to their own really I guess your community will soon let you know if they dont appreciate the siren going off! In a brigade with lower call out rate like mine it doesnt go off very often but when it does the community knows something is up!
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Ive probly said it before, but there is no need for sirens fullstop.
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Station sirens are NOT an official means of notifying the community of significant events. This is why we have EWMs and WAMs.
Agree that it shouldn't be used for turn out, but we use purely for fires in the immediate area only. It's not an official means, but any additional means of notification should not be discounted. EWMs are only useful if people are listening to the radio stations that broadcast them, or get a phone call/sms from the new system.
The problem with this is that then the local community becomes reliant on the siren for notifications and does not bother to listen to the media for official warnings. This will eventually lead to major issues, especially if your siren seizes like my brigades has.
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My community wants the siren to be activated during fire danger season, for fires in the local area - which is what we do.
My community is aware that should they hear the siren, they should go outside and look for / smell for smoke, and to check the CFS website etc for info......
As for brigades having pagers, and hence not needing sirens...it'd be great if the pagers worked consistently, but they don't - within my Group area there are numerous dead spots for pagers, and a siren is very helpful for actually advising members of call (since the pager often won't!)
Pip
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My community wants the siren to be activated during fire danger season, for fires in the local area - which is what we do.
My community is aware that should they hear the siren, they should go outside and look for / smell for smoke, and to check the CFS website etc for info......
Pip
So are you saying that you, as the brigade captain, have been out to the community and advertised the siren as an official means of notification when CFS paperwork states otherwise? Not meaning to stir you up, but i love the inconsistency within the CFS.
Gives me the shits answering calls on both the bushfire hotline and triple zero, from panicked and sometimes crying [no exaggeration here] residents during summer when they hear a station siren activate, only for us to tell them the locals are attending an MVA of fire alarm. Imagine there confusion then also, wondering why the local CFS is alerting the whole community to a minor incident.
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There's nothing wrong with what Pip is doing In getting the community on-side. I thougt this was the whole concept of "community" - ensuring that everyone is aware of issues that have the potential to impact on their welfare!
I can also see your Side Alex - but would be so bold as to suggest that perhaps those who do make those types of phone calls are also the type who rarely leave the house to interact with their community.
Perhaps the whole concept of CFS managing globally from a metro centric base is a little outdated if it doesn't recognize the ability of locals in any community to promote the CFS and it's relevant safety messages at the local level taking into account local issues, resources and infrastructure!
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Although I can see both sides of the issue, and not to mention I believe that the Fire Siren is an outdated method of firecall notification, Operations Bulletin 12/2007: Siren Policy does state the following:
Notwithstanding the above constraints, use of a Brigade siren shall be permitted at any time where circumstances require:
- Additional response of members, or
- Warning of danger to the community
Further to that, in bold:
It is necessary for brigade to meet with the community and discuss the use of siren, and agree on the use to meet the requirements of the SACFS and the community. It is encouraged these meeting are held each year prior to the start of the fire danger [sic], so the use of sirens can be reviewed.
I don't see any issue if the local brigade and community come to an agreement about the use of the local station siren. It's great to see it encouraged. I would have serious concerns if any discussion regarding its use was not coupled with the standard bushfire education message, eg: listen to 891 on a TFB, or other extreme day. If the use of the siren is causing particular concern and anxiety as Alex has mentioned, then perhaps Adelaide Fire need to pass this information on to the local brigade to ensure that the use of their siren, if any, is more aligned with community safety objectives during the summer months, rather than brigade turnout.
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Ive probly said it before, but there is no need for sirens fullstop.
maybe you should go read the Vic Royal Commission on the topic....
they have a very important role to play IMHO, people dont or arent always near radios/TV and the technology for Mob Phone alerts is NOT foolproof so should not be relied on.
On the day, simple things will work far better than complex things...... Use it appropriately, teach your Community what its for and how to use the information and thats about as much as you can hope for, when the scheiße starts
And if you're siren has seized....well, only yourselves to blame really isnt there?
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My community wants the siren to be activated during fire danger season, for fires in the local area - which is what we do.
My community is aware that should they hear the siren, they should go outside and look for / smell for smoke, and to check the CFS website etc for info......
Pip
So are you saying that you, as the brigade captain, have been out to the community and advertised the siren as an official means of notification when CFS paperwork states otherwise? Not meaning to stir you up, but i love the inconsistency within the CFS.
No Alex, that's not what I said...
I go out to my community, and tell them that the brigade will always set the siren off for a report of a bushfire in the local area during the fire danger season. The siren is an early warning for the community - to get them to go outside, and have a look around, work out where the fire is in relation to their property. It is nothing more than an early warning. I have advised them that should they hear the siren, once they have had a look around, have a look at the CFS website / listen to the relevant radio station for warnings etc.
I have also reinforced the concept of leaving early in the event of a bushfire, not waiting until they can see / smell the smoke, and directed them to the CFS website / brochures etc to ensure they understand the concepts.
As we are a small community, with a low turn over of properties, the brigade tries to get to all new residents to ensure they understand that they live in a high risk bushfire area, and have decided what they will do if a fire comes.
This is simply the CFS connecting with our community - something that went missing for a while across the CFS... and now, after coronial inquests in two states it has become apparent why brigades must connect with their community!
Pip
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Seems to me that rather than that you should actually be encouraging the community to be proactive on high fire risk days and listen to the radio whilst they work/play/commute. Rather than relying on the fire siren as a prompt.
This is my opinion only, one obviously not shared by many!
And if you're siren has seized....well, only yourselves to blame really isn't there?
Other than normal annual maintenance and monthly testing, what more can you do? These things happen, just the same as any other appliance or equipment failure. But in the case of a community trained to react to the station siren, how do you notify them of an incident when this happens unexpectedly.
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On the day, simple things will work far better than complex things......
such things as smoke signals perhaps?? :-P
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Other than normal annual maintenance and monthly testing, what more can you do? These things happen, just the same as any other appliance or equipment failure.
umm....preventative maintenance maybe?....do you wait until the appliance breaks down before u check fluids etc. It's a 2 minute job to CRC the siren and give it a spin around....
The Sturt Group trial is a good one. In the Fire Danger Season, the groups sirens all go off for a grass fire page anywhere in the Group (sounds like the Blitz). The community appear to understand the concept from what I have read, seems a simple concept really, and they will know before the Ignition/Threat and whatever other radio or phone message u want to get out is anywhere near typed.....
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I think that during high fire days sounding a siren is a good idea. The earlier you can get a warning out the better, if the siren is sounded shortly after the page you can't get much quicker than that. As previously said people then investigate, we all know how important an early warning is. I had a fire near our place and the best warning I got was a firebomber going over the top of my house with it's siren going it got my attention!. I then got on the paging website and scanner to find out where it exactly was. Nothing official came out on radio or web for about 25 to 30 minutes.
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As for brigades having pagers, and hence not needing sirens...it'd be great if the pagers worked consistently, but they don't - within my Group area there are numerous dead spots for pagers, and a siren is very helpful for actually advising members of call (since the pager often won't!)
Agree with Pip on this one.
And back to the original question, I'm guessing, no, AF are not "meant" to be activating sirens with the URGMSG string...but will if asked nicely?
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Other than normal annual maintenance and monthly testing, what more can you do? These things happen, just the same as any other appliance or equipment failure.
umm....preventative maintenance maybe?....do you wait until the appliance breaks down before u check fluids etc. It's a 2 minute job to CRC the siren and give it a spin around....
Hahaha sure. We'll get a crane out every week so we can CRC the thing.
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Other than normal annual maintenance and monthly testing, what more can you do? These things happen, just the same as any other appliance or equipment failure.
umm....preventative maintenance maybe?....do you wait until the appliance breaks down before u check fluids etc. It's a 2 minute job to CRC the siren and give it a spin around....
Hahaha sure. We'll get a crane out every week so we can CRC the thing.
Send the bill to region "As per Siren Policy" or just get the 5 out of 20 to head up :P