r/Firefighting • u/PhilosopherFull819 • May 29 '25
Ask A Firefighter Firefighter told me I shouldn't have called.
The smoke detector was going off from the car port underneath the garage apartments behind the 4plex I live in. I walked outside and saw no smoke or fire and found the detector. I mulled over reaching up and disabling it myself but I opted to err on the side of caution and report it. A truck pulled up minutes later and I showed the guys what I saw. The tallest one reached up and pulled it off and took out the battery. Another one got angry and said that I should "grow up" and "feel embarrassed" for calling. To which I replied I didn't want to turn off the alarm without confirming there was no danger that I couldn't see myself and thanked them and told them to have a nice day and they left. I imaging he was stressed and tired but can't help feeling like I did something wrong.
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u/wolfey200 Ass Chief May 29 '25
No matter how dumb or stupid of a reason I would never ever tell a resident not to call 911. That is such a huge liability. we get called for plumbing issues, obviously we are not plumbers but we do what we can and move on. We all know that calls like these happen and if this individual can’t handle it then he needs to find a new job. You heard an alarm and was concerned so you called 911, that is not an unreasonable thing to do. Yes we could say that obviously there is no issue besides a bad detector but telling someone that could make them second guess their decision to call 911 and it could be for a true emergency. It’s easier to suck it up and try to fix the problem.