Fire Horns

[Guest]

Was wondering if any westchester departments still use fire horns for fire calls? Of course I know eveyone has pagers, but I am talking along with the pagers does your fire horn still sound off when you have an alarm?

[pfd950 1]

Pelham still does during the day I believe up till 11:oo pm. A few times my pager did not go off and it was nice to have the horns sounding the box.

[Remember585 815]

Most Volunteer Departments still have a siren and/or horn system to supplement the pagers. Off the top of my head I can think of these...

Archville, Bedford Hills, Bedford, Briarcliff, Banksville, Buchanan, Chappaqua, Croton, Elmsford, Goldens Bridge, Hawthorne, Irvington, Katonah, Mamaroneck Village, Millwood, Montrose, Mount Kisco, Sleepy Hollow, North White Plains, Ossining, Pleasantville, Pocantico Hills, Somers, South Salem, Tarrytown, Thornwood, Verplanck, Yorktown, Grasslands Fire Brigade, Vista

[Guest alsfirefighter]

More importantly...why do they still have them?

Or even better why use them up until a certain time?

[ryefd192 2]

sometimes its just a tradition thing to use em..Rye would, but there are technical problems with it..and its to a certain time because neighbors tend to complain when it goes off at 1am.

[csf248 0]

Elmsford still has one and we use it 24/7. Our horn will actually tell us the type and location of the call, for example if 1-4- is blown, then it is a rescue call. It's good for places that you cant have our pagers on, or if you don't have yours with you.

[mikerabbit 2]

Horns probably should have quiet hours. From 10:0PM until 8:00 AM are standard "quiet hours " under most noise ordinances for construction work, amplified music etc. Now with pagers their is no reason to wake up a whole town in the middle of the night for a false alarm.

[Guest]

Most departments should still blow their siren for the sole reason that I believe it increases your districts protection rating... I cant remember what this number is actually called, but it has something to do with insurance... The more ways of notification of a call, the lower insurance rates people in your community can get. This was something I learned a while ago, but I can't remember what this number is actually called. Maybe someone else knows that...

[IzzyEng4 427]

More importantly...why do they still have them?

Or even better why use them up until a certain time?

←

After 9-11 this issue was brough up again and the feds actually said you need to have some sort of warning device to alert incase of another attack per-say. This actully saved our horns and gamewell system. I'm not sure how it is worded but there is truth to this fact.

[Guest]

Pleasantville uses the horn 24/7- not only for tradition's sake, but it lets the town know that there is emergency services traffic. It also helps if you don't have your pager on you- the horn blasts denote a major or minor alarm.

[csf248 0]

also i can still hear the horn if im out of pager range!

[JBJ1202 27]

Purchase FD still uses their siren 24/7. A couple of years ago we went from 10 blows to 4. At the same time they replaced the old one with a smaller siren...(the company did not make a siren with the same horsepower, only more or less....

hi chris

Edited December 8, 2005 by JBJ1202

[E64PCFD2044 1]

Port Chester used to have 2 airhorns but they got phased out a few years ago.

[pfd950 1]

More importantly...why do they still have them?

Or even better why use them up until a certain time?

In Pelham we still have quite a few dead spots with the pagers. Especially inside certian office structures, schools & a few low lying spots. The horns definitly alert many of the local members of the box. Our horns actually sound out a box location so you can respond without having to call or go to the house. As for the time restrictions----Politics and high taxes, people don't want to hear the horns at late hours, it actually isn't that much of a problem for the members, because at night we are all usaully home and have our pagers in an area that we know will get reception. The only exception in the silent hours are in cases of working fires, some sort of community alarm (haz-mat evacuation) or when personal are needed.

[Ladder44 73]

Most Volunteer Departments still have a siren and/or horn system to supplement the pagers.  Off the top of my head I can think of these...

Archville, Bedford Hills, Bedford, Briarcliff, Banksville, Buchanan, Chappaqua, Croton, Elmsford, Goldens Bridge, Hawthorne, Irvington, Katonah, Mamaroneck Village, Millwood, Montrose, Mount Kisco, Sleepy Hollow, North White Plains, Ossining, Pleasantville, Pocantico Hills, Somers, South Salem, Tarrytown, Thornwood, Verplanck, Yorktown, Grasslands Fire Brigade, Vista

←

Hastings, Dobbs Ferry, and Ardsley have one too.

Up here in Torrington (CT) we have a horn for the volunteers.

[nwpfdjr27 39]

north white plains uses their siren 24/7.pretty sure that Valhalla uses their siren 24/7 as well. nothing better than that beautiful shrill at 230 in the morning.

[JO134 0]

SLEEPY HOLLOW AND TARRYTOWN STILL USE THERE FIRE WHISTLE 24/7.

[vodoly 535]

:angry: Got to love it They use the whistle's here (Englewood Cliffs NJ)24/7 Test at 6 pm

[Guest alsfirefighter]

If your using your horn partly out of tradition then that's a problem.

[ex-commish 490]

Our horn blows 7am to 7pm. I have been an advocate of getting it shut around the clock as we all have pagers. Losing battle. :angry:

[hatr1k 6]

"Pleasantville uses the horn 24/7- not only for tradition's sake, but it lets the town know that there is emergency services traffic. It also helps if you don't have your pager on you- the horn blasts denote a major or minor alarm. "

- Its a truck horn on steroids.

Edited December 9, 2005 by StrobeGuRu

[ny10570 745]

"Pleasantville uses the horn 24/7- not only for tradition's sake, but it lets the town know that there is emergency services traffic. It also helps if you don't have your pager on you- the horn blasts denote a major or minor alarm. "

- Its a truck horn on steroids.

←

Too bad pleasatville gave up the Hays Hose horn. Now a good chucnk of the town can only hear the horn on a clear and quiet night. I can think of dozens of times where it was the horns that alerted me to an alarm.

Edited December 9, 2005 by ny10570

[CAM502 6]

Ok so what happens if your dept uses horns and so does the next town in either direction. Do you each have different styles?? Or is it a different set of box numbers?

[Shantz02 0]

Cam,

I can remember when i was younger and Eastchester still used theirs. From my house, you could hear the horn coming from Chester Heights but it was very faint (and i live at the north west corner of the Village). You could tell based on which direction the noise came from if it was the Pelham horn or the one in Eastchester.

[CPAGE 2]

Most departments should still blow their siren for the sole reason that I believe it increases your districts protection rating... I cant remember what this number is actually called, but it has something  to do with insurance...  The more ways of notification of a call, the lower insurance rates people in your community can get. This was something I learned a while ago, but I can't remember what this number is actually called. Maybe someone else knows that...

←

The I.S.O. rating

[TRUCK6018 50]

Most departments should still blow their siren for the sole reason that I believe it increases your districts protection rating... I cant remember what this number is actually called, but it has something  to do with insurance...  The more ways of notification of a call, the lower insurance rates people in your community can get. This was something I learned a while ago, but I can't remember what this number is actually called. Maybe someone else knows that...

←

What you're thinking of is the ISO rating. ISO (at one time) would give additional credits for a backup alerting system. This only applies to volunteer departments with over 600 calls per year. However, this is no longer the case.

Currently, for volunteer agencies to receive the full credit (under the receipt and handling of alarms section) they would need duplicate circuits. Dispatchers would need to transmit on two channels and members would be issued either two pagers or a pager and a handie-talkie. Fire horns are no longer applicable and alpha-paging is not applicable.

I believe the change was made to conform with NFPA 1221: Standard for the Installation, Maintenance, and Use of Emergency Services Communications Systems .

Edited December 9, 2005 by TRUCK6018

[Jared1979 19]

The Horns are a back up to the pagers and it does not bother me that they go off, they are letting the people know that there is a call. Most volunteers rely on them as well as their pagers. I dont believe the horns are a bad thing, you just have to get used to them because they are not going away. I live near West Harrison and North White Plains and I hear their sirens all the time and that does not bother me at all. Two weeks ago people up in Yorktown got a scare when a siren that was not used in fifteen years started blowing, it blew for fortyfive minutes, that is scary.

[dougeng41 1]

Here in the village of mamaroneck we currently use the horns 24/7 they are set off by the use of the pager system and have a delay in them so we can hear the message before the horns start blowing. Historically, you could know the location of an alarm due to the number of times the horn blew. Currently we only blow 4 for minor alarms and 8 for full assignments. This is done in two rounds of blasts. We are currently trying to update the system from our gamewell. Besides use as a secondary notifcation system for members, it is also used as a public warning system for flooding conditions, and the closure of school. It is my understanding that if you have volunteer members you must have a secondary means of notification in place. I can't quote any specific law. Can anyone come up with it?

[Remember585 815]

We still have house sirens that get used during daytime hours only for fire calls. Personally, I think we could do away with them 100%. Considering that during the day, most of our members are out of town working, home sleeping because they work shifts or simply doing other things, not many people hear them anyway. I know that we've been having radio issues, but I don't know many incidents where someone's pager didn't go off and they responded because they heard the house sirens. One solution that could benefit us is the dispatching service of, dare I say it, 60 Control. If we had continued problems, we could get dispatched off multiple towers and/or supplement this with the I-page to vital personnel. But GOD forbid we make a PROGRESSIVE CHANGE! Not just us, but the whole area as a whole.

Sirens are obsolete. If a member is going to be an active responder, they're going to have thier pager on them anyway! Or, in some rare cases, actually spend some time at the firehouse......where they're bound to know about a call one way or another.

Time to go brush off my car, I only hope I can hear the house siren over all the snowblowers and plows around me. ( :angry: )

[loopy31 12]

I believe that the horn should still be used for many reasons;

1. The town people know that emergency vehicles will be out on the roads so they can be more alert.

2. If you want to go to church or a school event, you do not have to bring your pager. Pagers make a lot of noise, even if you have one of the ones that vibrates. It is considerate to others.

3. It's nice to have the town people know that their volunteers are out on a call, during the day or in the middle of the night. Let them know how often you are called!

4. There have been many times that our pager systems have been down and the only way we know there is a call is if the horn blows.

Those are just a few.

Edited December 9, 2005 by loopy31