P1 to a tree over road has always bewildered me to a certain extent.
No matter how fast I rush to that job, if a car is on the road in front of me it (if its going to hit the tree)....
I agree.
I think it is a difference between 'potential life risk' incident (eg tree over road, fire alarm, etc) and 'it is life risk happening now' incident (RCR, vertical rescue, industrial accident, house fire confirmed with person trapped, etc).
Then add the in-between incident types that do/could involve a risk to life like 'land search', 'just started smoldering fire in grass or bush on a low fire danger day', 'smoke detector operating in a house with no other signs of fire & 'smoke in the area'.
In SES, it is the Unit that will interpret the task type & local conditions before lights/sirens are switched on. Not everyone follows the pager priorities to gospel.
Personally, I think lights/sirens are used too much by both services to 'potential life threat' taskings. It does not save you that much time.
Please do not keep slagging people based on pager priorities which is based on pre-determined computer system. Yes, I think some are flashing light/siren crazy. But that happens in both CFS & SES.
Maybe we do need 20+ priority codes so people do not need to think, but I personally would prefer local knowledge to be included.
Real people do interpret the pager information to make a decision on tasking priorities.