Re: 911:: Storm Operations

[Guest guest]

With us having our own municipal power & light utility, usually during working

hours one of those guys would check the wire down reports but the police patrols

would respond if needed.   Only if the power & light or police couldn't stand by

at the scene or unless burning wires were a threat to a structure or people

would we call out our fire department which is 100% volunteer in our town of

only 8000 population.

Rich Dean, , New Jersey  USA  07405  

Member of FD since 1973, Telecommunicator at PD 1975 - 2009, 

Driver at Tri-Boro First Aid Squad since 2000, Enterprise Rent A Car Customer

Service Driver since Dec 2010,  Railfan and Roadgeek since birth.  

 

OMG  (ask me privately what this means, it might not be what you think)

 

Please try these groups if they interest you:

www.yahoogroups.com/group/Firepics

www.yahoogroups.com/group/FirematicEvents--- On Thu, 6/9/11, richard h

wrote:

Subject: Re: 911:: Storm Operations

To: 911console

Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011, 11:21 AM

Doesn't Fire normally respond on wires down calls at your agency?

[Guest guest]

Here in the suburban northeast US, a big problem causing power outages is

squirrels biting into the wires along with tree growth.   Sometimes they do

start fires.

Rich Dean, , New Jersey  USA  07405  

Member of FD since 1973, Telecommunicator at PD 1975 - 2009, 

Driver at Tri-Boro First Aid Squad since 2000, Enterprise Rent A Car Customer

Service Driver since Dec 2010,  Railfan and Roadgeek since birth.  

 

OMG  (ask me privately what this means, it might not be what you think)

 

Please try these groups if they interest you:

www.yahoogroups.com/group/Firepics

www.yahoogroups.com/group/FirematicEvents

 

Subject: Re: 911:: Storm Operations

To: 911console

Date: Saturday, June 11, 2011, 3:22 PM

Having your own power utility is probably an advantage if it improves response

times.

In California Pacific Gas and Electric might not respond for several hours,

Pacific Bell and various cable tv companies - response times are measured in

days. And that's in normal weather.

Sometimes we'd get calls of power outages which were actually wires down, which

had started actual fires but because the area was sparsely populated we

initially only knew there was a power outage. That was often a clue. It would be

inappropriate to send someone from the power company alone to fight a fire, so

if there was any chance of wires down we'd send Fire and figure out what sort of

wires after we got there.

Another thing we used to have problems with - Stupid birds that would get

electrocuted on the windmills or high tension power lines, catch fire, fall to

the ground where the burning carcass would start a brush fire. If only the birds

knew how to use twitter, we could have received these reports before the fires

got really big.