Arlington Mass FD last night around 11 PM - E1 E2 L1 R1 C2 responded to a box alarm at the High School - then, a couple of minutes later, E3 responded alone to a telephone report of a fire alarm sounding at 37 Drake Road (a highrise elderly bld)
Guess what? The box alarm had actually been activated at 37 Drake Road. So E2 R1 L1 C2 then travelled westward 1 mile to Drake Road. Engine 3 found 1 inch of water in an apartment on the 7th floor. It was never heard where the water came from. The dispatcher was heard to say that the console had briefly flashed "High School". So he sent units to the High School. I guess that no one realized that Box 576 was actually at Drake Road. Arlington FD has recently implemented a radio box system. Possibly when a radio box is received the dispatcher has to manually retransmit 2 rounds of the box to the fire stations. These 2 rounds will go out via radio and via the station bells. (IIRC the box at the High School is 513). All Arlington fire boxes have 2 first 2 digits that are even, or the first 2 digits that are odd. Bottom line - approximately 20 people missed the fact that they were responding to the wrong location. (approx 17 FD people + 2 dispatchers + maybe 3 to 5 cops) (the cops also responded to the call - I think they went to the High School also). The dispatchers probably sweated just a tad when they got the phone call from 37 Drake Rd - "Where the friggin FD at?" -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
