Does anyone else do this?

[fireguy919]

We ran with another department that dropped a road cone at the end of a driveway on calls. Made it real easy to find if you in rural areas. We like the idea so we started to do it. Easy to tell everyone to look for the road cone instead of trying to find numbers when some people don’t put them on. This area here a lot fo houses are way off the road as well. Last night we ran a first responder call ambulance asked if we could give them better directions we told them look for the road cone. After ward they stopped by and went on about how great that way. They wished a lot more departments would do it. We have been doing it so long didn’t think is was all that special I was wondering does anyone else do anything like that for the next in units to find.

[MarcusKspn]

Not a road cone, but along those lines. An elderly couple that has to call 911 for medical help quite frequently bought an adapter for the porch light. If they flip the switch for the light on and off 3 times, the porch light will keep on flashing on-off-on-off until it is turned back off. Makes it easy for us to drive down the street and look for the flashing porch light. I was sure to thank his wife about making it easier for us to find their house.

[nmfire]

i've thought about it. It would be nice to do but probably hard to make people start doing.

[WMFF12]

On our dept, we have a rookies that are painted orange..... works like a charm... till those damn teenagers steal em.....

heh heh heh

[Lewie1]

Our Chief's car has a cone and he will drop one at the road on long driveways that you can't see his car from the road. We don't usually slow down long enough with the engine to drop a cone. I have also seen the porch lights advertised and like the idea.

Lewie

[S8ER95Z]

Would be cool if the city (or whomever) would install something like that.. flashing curb section or something (mailbox even). Of course with every great idea comes abuse I suppose the cone would work best.

[Weruj1]

never heard of the cone thing ..............but we do have a few with the blinking porch light.

[firepics]

We have tried those Glow sticks once or twice at night, but it isn't something we regularly do.

[SSTONER]

We ran with another department that dropped a road cone at the end of a driveway on calls. Made it real easy to find if you in rural areas. We like the idea so we started to do it. Easy to tell everyone to look for the road cone instead of trying to find numbers when some people don’t put them on. This area here a lot fo houses are way off the road as well. Last night we ran a first responder call ambulance asked if we could give them better directions we told them look for the road cone. After ward they stopped by and went on about how great that way. They wished a lot more departments would do it. We have been doing it so long didn’t think is was all that special I was wondering does anyone else do anything like that for the next in units to find.

We run with a Deaprtment that has some Rural Areas - they also drop a cone at the end of the road for us. A lot of the roads are not marked so this makes it very easy to pick out which road.

[THEFIRENUT]

We have been using cones on wildland fires for some time. They are great. Still having a hard time getting other dept.'s to do the same (even though they like it when we use ours).

We have 23 seperate subdivisions so on medical calls we always have someone at the entrance to guide EMS to the residence. We also have a few people that have those "blinking porch lights". We are happy just to be able to find their address on the house.

[Godsmack]

There are a few wacker's and Dingers in my department that sit on the side of the road with there Blue lights/ Red lights going so we can look for that. I thought our way was the standard way, I guess I learned something new today.

P.S. These guys have so many lights on there vehicles when you pull up to the scene you would almost think it's christmas time with all the dazzling lights like a christmas tree.

[S8ER95Z]

In this case (pointing you to a discrete location) is being a whacker that bad?

The way I see it they do you a service. ha ha

[mtnfireguy]

We use cones for rural locations and small wildfires.

Larger wildfires usually result in the use of flagging tape... sometimes numerous rolls of it.

[SafetyPro]

Back in the days before Minitor pagers (and before me...at least on the department), dispatch was via the horn. The city was divided into quadrants, and the number of blasts on the horn would tell you what quad the call was in. The dispatcher would write the address on a chalkboard and set it in front of the station. The first engine out would take the board and would place it in a specific intersection in the quad (generally the main one everybody would drive through anyway). Personnel responding in their POVs would drive to the specific quad intersection, read the board, and know where to go.

[SSTONER]

Back in the days before Minitor pagers (and before me...at least on the department), dispatch was via the horn. The city was divided into quadrants, and the number of blasts on the horn would tell you what quad the call was in. The dispatcher would write the address on a chalkboard and set it in front of the station. The first engine out would take the board and would place it in a specific intersection in the quad (generally the main one everybody would drive through anyway). Personnel responding in their POVs would drive to the specific quad intersection, read the board, and know where to go.

Its always fun/interesting to learn how it was then and the way it is now!

[needlejockey]

Back in the days before Minitor pagers (and before me...at least on the department), dispatch was via the horn. The city was divided into quadrants, and the number of blasts on the horn would tell you what quad the call was in. The dispatcher would write the address on a chalkboard and set it in front of the station. The first engine out would take the board and would place it in a specific intersection in the quad (generally the main one everybody would drive through anyway). Personnel responding in their POVs would drive to the specific quad intersection, read the board, and know where to go.

Wow. Really, just WOW!

[nmfire]

Back in the days before Minitor pagers (and before me...at least on the department), dispatch was via the horn. The city was divided into quadrants, and the number of blasts on the horn would tell you what quad the call was in. The dispatcher would write the address on a chalkboard and set it in front of the station. The first engine out would take the board and would place it in a specific intersection in the quad (generally the main one everybody would drive through anyway). Personnel responding in their POVs would drive to the specific quad intersection, read the board, and know where to go.

Good lord. Had they even invented gravity back then?

[MetalMedic]

Back in the days before Minitor pagers (and before me...at least on the department), dispatch was via the horn. The city was divided into quadrants, and the number of blasts on the horn would tell you what quad the call was in. The dispatcher would write the address on a chalkboard and set it in front of the station. The first engine out would take the board and would place it in a specific intersection in the quad (generally the main one everybody would drive through anyway). Personnel responding in their POVs would drive to the specific quad intersection, read the board, and know where to go.

I agree with the WOW! Did you replace this method with tin cans and string?

[bunkers2big]

Alright it isn't all that long ago that they used the horn to signal calls. I know when my dad was in the FD that's how they new there was a call. A certain # of horn blows, a pause and then another # of horn blows, gave the area and if I remember, but I'm not sure the trucks that sould go. This was only in the early '70s. They even went into burning buildings without SCBA. I remember being told the story about a warehouse being on fire and my dad & the FD went to the call. My dad's inside and decides to call my mother because it had been a while, and he wasn't coming home real soon. So he's talking to her and she finally asks where he's calling from. Mom didn't like that he was calling her from a burning building. He always said he wasn't in any danger at the time, the phone was sitting there,he thought he'd use it.

[SafetyPro]

I like the system my father-in-law's department in Indiana used. Before the days of 911, they had a regular 7-digit dispatch number. Every FF's house was specially wired so that when the dispatch number was called, the phones would ring in every members' house with a unique ring. The first FF to answer would take the call information and would proceed to the station and tell everyone else where to go. When my wife was growing up, she and her brother were under strict orders to NOT answer the phone if it rang the FD ring.

Of course, before that, if there was a fire, you just called the grocery store across the street from the fire station and they told the FD where to go.

Incidentally, there are still communities that use the horn for dispatch. I've personally heard it in small towns in both Washington and Indiana. Actually, we still have our horn, and by tradition, it still sounds a single blast at noon everyday.