HeyBub wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


I never trust any ilk.

The volunteer fire department where I lived in Ohio had no
dispatcher. The phone rang at a paper mill a half mile away. They
would trip the old Plectrons over a leased phone line, then turn on a
W.W. II surplus air raid siren, in case the old radios weren't
working. It also alerted anyone with hearing that the volunteers
would be rushing to the fire house, then to the fire. That paper
mill is no more, and the county took over dispatch before I left
Ohio. That was before 911, and the call had to be routed to another
town which was less than perfect.

Sounds like a good plan.

In our VFD, the phone was answered by a fireman who launched the page and
drove the firetruck to the scene. People receiving the page went either to
the fire or to the station to roll more equipment.

There's probably no limit to the procedures that have been found to work
well in various communities.

By the way, about 80% of the firefighters in the US are volunteers.


I've worked with several volunteers. One had to respond to a fire
where we worked, on Friday night. The Northern Electric 'Merlin' phone
system caught fire, and did a lot of damage to the front offices &
engineering department.

A neighbor's house burnt, and they couldn't get the tanker down the
sand road because of the weight, so they ran a half mile of hose between
the smaller pumper & the highway where the larger trucks were waiting.
They were there for about three hours before it was out. I heard the
chief tell them to Roll & carry the hose back to the highway, so I got
my truck, and slowly backed out to the highway as they rolled & tossed
the hose on the truck. They thanked me, but I was glad to help. I
would be useless, these days, but you help where you can.