It turns out it’s a big fire in Boston…

  • Jason@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    So do people in the US rank the size of your fires in “alarms”??! Like a bin fire is a 1 alarm fire? But a house fire is a 3 alarm?

    Do you say, “quick, evacuate the neighbourhood, there’s an 8 alarm fire heading our way”

    I’ve never heard of this before today.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 day ago

      The number of alarms is (I think) how many different departments, or possibly fire engines, are needed to fight the fire. So yes pretty much. It’s often how they are described in news articles.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          20 hours ago

          Hey thanks, I’m in the 10,000 today. Unit count does make sense. I wasn’t aware of the terminology for firefighting teams/groups/trucks.