| Carey Gregory 2005-05-25, 10:54 pm |
| HorneTD <hornetd@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Fire will only remain a dwindling emergency if the means to contact fire
>& rescue services remain reliable. Present practice is to fight fires
>room by room.
Not to quibble, but the reduction in fires over the last several decades is
due primarily to building design, electrical codes, sprinklers, alarm
systems, and public education. Improvements in firefighting capabilities
represent only a small contribution to the reduction.
>If decaying reliability of the PSTN continues we will
>have to go back to fighting them block by block. As for money to staff
>watch towers such watches were historically maintained by on duty fire
>crews. My remarks about station towers were only meant to indicate that
>we are now going backwards in the reliability of emergency call
>communications.
Perhaps so, but I'm very skeptical that even a complete breakdown of the
PSTN would result in the scenario you describe. After all, there are many
cities in the world that don't have reliable emergency reporting systems,
yet massive fires spanning entire blocks are very rare, even in those
places.
|