Fire alarms, a vital and mandatory part of public safety and infrastructure, are the pinnacle of fire safety. Nothing speaks louder about an emergency than extremely loud noises and flashing lights. But as with all things, there always is a non-zero chance that there will be a malfunction. This can be caused by anything, from electrical issues to a delinquent pulling a manual alarm. But, in all ways it can go wrong, it almost always causes issues with evacuation. The panic of a false alarm is just as real as a true alarm. 

But, in contrast, it isn’t just an issue with the public, sometimes the first responders are too used to responding to these false alarms. According to firefighter and paramedic Brett Krasuski from the Plainfield Fire Department, “on our side, it can affect how our men work, making a complacency issue. Some firefighters end up thinking every fire alarm will be false- which is 98% of alarms- and they get too used to it. They end up not being ready for that 2%.” According to FEMA, 7.9% of all calls in The U.S. are false fire alarms, which makes that the third leading call in total. 

Overall, false alarms are a nuisance, but somewhat necessary to educate the public on what to do in case of a real emergency. “I look at it like something the department could educate the public on, to know when the wire or battery maintenance in a system is needed,” Krasuski said.

 Overall, I believe that it’s both good and bad. Both in the sense that they are both a learning experience and an issue, mostly circling around the point that you get to practice what to do during a true emergency. But, due to technological issues, this can be either severe and common or rare and doesn’t create as much of an impact. In my opinion, as long as the occupants of a building are well-trained in terms of building evacuation procedures, it’s not a huge problem.