The Fire Sirens in New Jersey
Across the state of New Jersey, there are several sirens that are used as fire sirens. This means that they go off for fire calls or emergency calls for departments to call people to respond. The sirens are typically found near municipal buildings and areas.
Fire siren history is very confusing however here's an oversimplified version of it. First fire departments used bells and sometimes air horns to alert the firefighters in a fire call. As telephone systems got more and more popular many departments decided to buy electromechanical sirens to help them communicate a fire call. These sirens would be at first place to the fire departments however as time went on they placed them on street poles throughout towns. Usually, the sirens were managed by the fire departments however in some cases they were managed by the towns. As time went on other methods to communicate a fire call such as a pager system got much better but not 100% reliable. Many fire departments nowadays use both sirens and pagers to communicate. This ensures that fire departments are reliable. Many fire departments nowadays though have to choose whether to continue with both their siren and their pagers or just go to pagers. It is a choice up to the fire departments and in the next article you will see why there are problems and why choices and compromises have to be made.
Problems with Fire Sirens and How to Solve Them:
With fire sirens being so random when they go off, typically, many people complain about them. Because so many people complain about the sirens some towns have opted to remove or deactivate their sirens. Although this is bad it is sometimes for the better because of decibel levels. However, there are better alternatives than the extreme option of deactivation. The first alternative would be to scale back its sounding window. This means that the siren can only sound from a certain time to a certain time of day, such as 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. The other alternative would be to scale back what it sounds for. Such as only major fire calls. Both of these are good alternatives but it should be noted that this does not solve the loudness of the siren it only reduces how many times it sounds.
A sign near the Wanique Fire Department in NJ about their siren and how not to move your car
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