A fire alarm box, fire alarm call box, or fire alarm pull box is a device used for notifying a
fire department
A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...
of a fire. Typically installed on street corners, they were the main means of summoning firefighters before the general availability of telephones.
When the box is activated by turning a knob or pulling a hook, a spring-loaded wheel turns, tapping out a pulsed electrical signal corresponding to the box's number. A receiver at fire headquarters announces the alarm through flashing lights or tones, or via a
pen recorder, and the box number is matched to a list of box locations. In modern installations a computer receives and translates the pulses; in unmanned installations in small communities, the box number may be sounded out by a horn or bell audible community-wide.
Though fire alarm boxes remain in use, many communities have removed them, relying instead on the widespread availability of landline and cellular telephones. Cities like San Francisco still rely heavily on fire alarm boxes for redundancy in case of emergency. Some municipalities still maintain their fire alarm boxes near schools and other sensitive locations.
History
The first telegraph fire alarm system was developed by
William Francis Channing
William Francis Channing (February 22, 1820 – March 20, 1901) was an American activist, electrical researcher, scientist, physician, and inventor. He invented the first citywide electric fire alarm system. Channing worked with Alexander Graham ...
and
Moses G. Farmer
Moses Gerrish Farmer (February 9, 1820 – May 25, 1893) was an electrical engineer and inventor. Farmer was a member to the AIEE, later known as the IEEE.
Biography
Farmer was born at Boscawen, New Hampshire. He received his schooling at Philli ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
in 1852.
Two years later they applied for a
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
for their "Electromagnetic Fire Alarm Telegraph for Cities". In 1855, John Gamewell of
South Carolina
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, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
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purchased regional rights to market the fire alarm telegraph, later obtaining the patents and full rights to the system in 1859. John F. Kennard bought the patents from the government after they were seized after the Civil War, returned them to Gamewell, and formed a partnership, Kennard and Co., in 1867 to manufacture the alarm systems. The Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Co. was later formed in 1879. Gamewell systems were installed in 250 cities by 1886 and 500 cities in 1890. By 1910, Gamewell had gained a 95%
market share
Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...
.
Robustness
The simplicity of telegraph alarm boxes and their associated networks means that they are able to operate under conditions (such as a lengthy or widespread power outage, a natural disaster, or any emergency causing many people to attempt to contact others simultaneously) which may disrupt or disable other communication systems such as landline phones, cellular phones, and emergency services' radio systems.
Despite lack of popular awareness the boxes still work, a fire box was used to report a fire in Boston in December 2018 during a
9-1-1
, usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...
outage.
False alarm countermeasures
In the later years of their use and proliferation, some fire boxes were designed with special devices and other functions in place in an attempt to curb the nuisance of
false alarms
A false alarm, also called a nuisance alarm, is the deceptive or erroneous report of an emergency, causing unnecessary panic and/or bringing resources (such as emergency services) to a place where they are not needed. False alarms may occur with ...
. Some of these included an "ear-shattering" wail that would cause discomfort to someone activating the box, while others would
handcuff
Handcuffs are restraint devices designed to secure an individual's wrists in proximity to each other. They comprise two parts, linked together by a chain, a hinge, or rigid bar. Each cuff has a rotating arm which engages with a ratchet tha ...
a detachable part of the device to the person triggering the alarm, so that responding police and fire officials (who possessed the key for release) could more easily identify and contact the individual responsible for the activated alarm.
References
External links
Gamewell-FCI company history{{Fire protection
American inventions
Fire detection and alarm