3 Replies to “Crozet Fire Department’s on Twitter”

  1. Jim, thanks for posting about the new Crozet Fire Dept. Twitter account.

    In regards to your siren question:

    “Back in the early 1910’s the early fire notification was a siren that was installed on the Cold Storage building (mountain side). There were six people with a button to turn on the siren, each person had a ground wire run to their house. This ground wire completed the circuit which energized the siren. The single phone number for the fire department was 823-4000 which was long before the 911 dispatch system was ever created. Six people had this phone number on a phone in their house and when called it would activate the siren.

    Whoever answered the phone would stay on the line until someone arrived at the fire house and picked up the phone. The person at the fire house who took the call would write the location on the chalk board. Most of the time the person who took the call missed the engine. Crozet at the time was divided into 4 quadrants and the siren would tell the members which quadrant to go to. Block 1, which is present day Crozet Pizza/Three Notch’d Grill/Maupin’s Video, was one long and one short blast on the siren. Block 2, which is present day Dairy Queen, was one long and two short blasts on the siren. Block 3, which is present day Mountain Side, was one long and three short blasts on the siren. Block 4, which is the Square present day, was one long and four short blasts on the siren. For structure fires the signal was repeated several times on the siren.”

    Today, the siren is mounted on top of the Crozet Firehouse. It may be activated by members if there is a need for additional manpower on calls, multiple calls where manpower is needed, or at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve.

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