Fire?

Last night a smoke detector was acting funky in our apartment building. We were just sitting around watching a movie, and every once in a while we’d hear “BEEP BEEP BEEP” coming from the hallway. Sometimes it’d beep a few times, other times it would beep for 30 seconds or so. It didn’t take long for this to become annoying/slightly worrisome, so I went to investigate. It turned out it was coming from the 4th floor, and since I didn’t smell any smoke I figured the battery must be failing, so after talking it over with an old lady in her pajamas, I took the battery out.

20 minutes later, the beeping started again, only this time it was coming from the second floor. Really weird. Some people came out of their apartments and we all started coming up with ideas of what to do. We were going to call the Super, but once someone mentioned that there had been several fires in this apartment building in the past, we decided it would be best to call the fire department, to be safe.

Somehow, I was volunteered to do this. Having had previous shitty experience from dialing 311, I decided I’d call 911 and state that this wasn’t really an emergency.

911: What department do you need?
Me: Fire department
911: “What borough?
Me: Manhattan
[Transfers]
FD: Fire Department, where’s the fire?
Me: No fire, but there’s a smoke dete…
FD: Sir, what’s your address?
Me: [Gives address]
FD: (frantic) What apartment?
Me: [Gives apartment number], Now hold on, there was a smoke detector going off, and I thought it was the battery so I took it out, but then later a smoke detector went off on another floor, so I thought it would be…
FD: The fire is in your apartment?
Me: NO. NO FIRE. PLEASE, just listen to me. We just had some smoke detectors go off intermittently in the hallway, and we’d like someone to check it out. That’s all.
FD: Oh, ok sir, we’ll send a fireman over.
Me: Great, thanks.

I made that call at about 11:30, I’d say.

11:31: HOONNNNKKK HOOOOOONNNKK BEEEEP BOOOOP BEEEEEP BOOOP HOOONNNKKK HOOONNNKK

Aw, shit.

11:32: Seven fireman in full gear come barreling up the stairs, complete with axes. I told them what happened, and they started banging on everyone’s door, asking if everyone is all right. Lots of people were out of their apartments at this point — you could hear chatter on all the floors — …. and it turned out to be nothing. Their detectors didn’t detect anything, and they surmised that someone probably walked down with a cigarette, or the smoke blew in from outside. I wouldn’t think that would cause two smoke alarms to go off for an hour, but whatever. That was that. I apologized, and they said “no problem, that’s what we’re here for”.

All in all, I guess it makes sense they sent the whole crew. If they had just sent a peon over to check things out, and he ended up finding a door with smoke pouring out from underneath it… that probably wouldn’t have been good. I must say, though, I’m really impressed with their response time. Nice work, FDNY.