Lets talk about Alarms mainly here. Why is the SOP 2 appliances ONLY? and NOT anything you can get. This time give me good reasons and not poxy "we look like dads army" or " it isn't safe to drive"
I spoke about this with other members and the general consensus was the point of an alarm is that it should detect FIRE hence until you are on scene you assume the building is burning so if enough crew are avalible for 2 trucks TAKE them.
Ok mate, you want to talk about alarms. 99% of the time AFA's are nothing. There is a reason they are nicknamed 'code calls', because of how often the stop message is merely the AIRS code given for the reason of activation of alarm and nothing more. The number of real fires that are AFA's are so very small.
Two applainces is more than enough to merely investigate an alarm sounding with no 000 calls. If you ring Adelaide Fire and they tell you that there are multiple calls for fire and smoke visible, then ok, take the second truck. But for an initial alarm call with no 000 confirmation, you simply don't need more than two trucks.
Even if you arrive, it turns out to be something and you don't think you can handle it with only your two appliances then get on the radio, upgrade it to a 2nd alarm. In the meantime though you can be doing a whole lot of good with the two crews already on the ground.
Not to mention that the majority of alarms are Smoke Detectors, designed to detect the presence of smoke and also, steam, aerosols, smoke from burnt foodstuffs etc etc... If it was a thermal, of flame detector then yeah, they are designed to detect FIRE and are less likely to active when there is no 'real' fire present.
