VIDEO: The City of Shawnee approved a station alert system for its fire department and now, it’s up and running.
It’s designed to not only keep firefighters healthier, but also the public a little safer. For sleeping firefighters, it’s now a red light instead of a bright one and the alarm starts softer before increasingly getting louder.
“In the middle of the night, this fire crew gets called out,” said Shawnee Deputy Fire Chief Corey Sands. “Instead of the hard bells that go off and all the lights come on, the speakers are blaring, it ramps up. It’s not the sudden shock to the firefighters’ systems. It allows them to wake up, get oriented and make it to the scene safely.”
The alarms are now customized to the trucks getting called out instead of waking the entire house.
The new $150,000 system has been in place for four months and soon, every fire department building in Shawnee will have them.