I see this on the news a lot: “a 3-alarm fire occurred today at . . .”.
How many firefighters, vehicles and fire companies (I think they’re called Ladders) are involved in a 1-alarm fire?
What qualifies a fire as a 2-Alarm, 3-alarm, etc. fire?
I’m guessing there are actual numbers of personnel and/or equipment that qualifies a fire as 1-Alarm, 2-Alarm, etc.
In: 7
You’re pretty much right. 1st alarm is usually a minimal amount of manpower and equipment to fight a fire. If the person in command on scene determines they need more equipment, they can either request an additional piece of equipment (if they need only a little bit more help) or more frequently they’ll request a 2nd alarm.
If they need even more help on scene, they’ll request a 3rd alarm.
Around here where there’s almost all volunteer fire departments, a 1st alarm includes at least 3 departments. First department (in whatever district its in) is a full response – all pieces of apparatus. Second department might be an engine and a truck (we can write a whole post on the difference between the apparatus’). Third department might be just an engine, or a truck).
Second alarm, you get even more. Your own alarm will be resounded for a second alarm fire, then you get more from the departments that are on scene, usually +1 rig from the second department, +1 rig from the third department, then +1 rig from 2 other departments to the scene plus additional standby rigs from other departments to cover the departments that are at the scene.
That’s how it works here with volunteers, at least.
You can see here how the NYFD works with multiple alarms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-alarm_fire
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