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.

205 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

216 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/crackerjam May 29 '25

Something I don't think anyone else has considered, this could be a combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarm. You can't see or smell CO, we have gas meters for that.

If they didn't use a meter to check it's completely possible this was a CO alarm going off that they just pulled the battery on and left...

1

u/potatoprince1 May 30 '25

CO… outside?

2

u/crackerjam May 30 '25

Yeah I'm not quite sure about how the scene is structured. OP calls it a car port, but mentioned that it's 'underneath the garage apartments'. Of course if it's just an open air car port CO isn't a concern.

1

u/potatoprince1 May 31 '25

True it’s not very clear