The Ventura Fire Department is asking residents to make sure their house numbers are easily seen from the street.
On Tuesday, the department responded to a fire alarm call at a home. When they arrived on the street, firefighters had difficulty figuring out which house the alarm was coming from, because there were no address numbers on the home. Ventura Fire Department does not have GPS navigation on their fire trucks.
According to Firefighter Jim Sholly, the confusion caused a 2 minute delay in their response. Considering that a fire can double in size every 30 seconds, two minutes could mean the loss of lives.
Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm, caused by a malfunctioning system.