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.
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Michael A. Terrell
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. :)
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Steve W.
I thank you for that assist on behalf of my fellow Fire Fighters. You would be surprised how small things like that help. We had an auxiliary until a few years ago. They were mainly wives and folks who wanted to help but didn't want or couldn't be full responders. They would hold fund raisers and show up at calls with coffee, food and such. At 3AM when you've been dragging hose and doing interior work a cup and a cruller are VERY welcome items. Sadly they disbanded due to lack of interest by the current generation in helping the community.
Our dispatch comes through the county and with the current radio system there are many times you ask for second tones or repeats due to garbled static. This will get worse soon with the new radios going to narrow band and less than 50 watts of power.
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