What's up with the fire trucks?

[Anonymous]

New to the area, moved here in September. Currently living in an apartment complex near a metro station in nova. I am constantly -- and I do mean constantly -- hearing and seeing fire trucks daily. At least 3x/week there is a fire truck outside the apartment complex/shopping area where I live. Yesterday, I saw it go by at least 4 times!! So that begs the question, why? Do fire departments here respond to different things than they do where I'm from. At home, it's for just fires, and you just don't see fire trucks speeding around with sirens blazing unless there is a fire -- in other words, I rarely see them around. Here, I see them constantly. There is no way there is a fire in my area that many times a week.

[Anonymous]

Looking forward to the replies. Twice in the past six months my family has had a medical emergency which required an ambulance, but clearly only an ambulance. The fire truck came both times. This is in Chevy Chase.

[Anonymous]

The firetrucks get there before the ambulance can.

[Anonymous]

My neighborhood has narrow cul-de-sac, and we have firetrucks going through our neighborhood every week teaching them how to drive on narrow roads.

I’m not sure what is going on with your apartment complex. Are you saying that they are responding to incidents or are you saying you just see them there?

[Anonymous]

Something is always on fire in the big city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking forward to the replies. Twice in the past six months my family has had a medical emergency which required an ambulance, but clearly only an ambulance. The fire truck came both times. This is in Chevy Chase.

Firefighters are also EMTs and paramedics. Fire stations are usually closer than hospitals. Also, sometimes there’s a need for more than two personnel for a medical emergency. Ambulances only have two personnel.

[Anonymous]

Anything that needs an ambulance often also gets a fire truck

[Anonymous]

They send out the fire truck for medical emergencies, OP. Not just for fires.

[Anonymous]

They always send the fire truck with the ambulance when they respond to a home medical emergency. My understanding is that they want to make sure that it's safe for the EMTs to enter the premises and want to make sure that the emergency isn't caused by carbon monoxide, smoke, hazardous chemicals, etc. The firemen have the equipment to enter a building during hazardous situations.

[Anonymous]

OP here - they are definitely responding to incidents. I can see them buzz by right out my window, down the street, with horns blaring.

When they are parked outside my building a few times a week, it's definitely for an incident (lights on, sirens were on). The apartment is a busy area with lots of shops and restaurants. For example, I saw them go into the sandwich shop last week in full gear last week. This is ongoing - IDK if they are responding to an incident in the apartments or the shops, as everything is right here.

It's gotta be for medical emergency. Seems so odd to me - the ambulances respond to that at home. Plus the fire trucks are so big and not as agile to move about in built-up areas like this, as an ambulance would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anything that needs an ambulance often also gets a fire truck

OP here. Do you know why? This seems so odd to me! I'm very curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They always send the fire truck with the ambulance when they respond to a home medical emergency. My understanding is that they want to make sure that it's safe for the EMTs to enter the premises and want to make sure that the emergency isn't caused by carbon monoxide, smoke, hazardous chemicals, etc. The firemen have the equipment to enter a building during hazardous situations.

Really? So if someone had a heart attack in their home, the fire department has to enter the home first to make sure it's safe before EMTs can help the person? Hazardous chemicals are that much of an issue here?

[Anonymous]

Where did you move from? A one stoplight town??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They always send the fire truck with the ambulance when they respond to a home medical emergency. My understanding is that they want to make sure that it's safe for the EMTs to enter the premises and want to make sure that the emergency isn't caused by carbon monoxide, smoke, hazardous chemicals, etc. The firemen have the equipment to enter a building during hazardous situations.

Really? So if someone had a heart attack in their home, the fire department has to enter the home first to make sure it's safe before EMTs can help the person? Hazardous chemicals are that much of an issue here?

The fire department is there in case they are needed.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if this is true or not, but someone told me many years ago the fire trucks respond in such force here because of the density and risk of losing a whole block.

I’ve been in 2 different building fires in DC - rowhouse apartment upstairs neighbor fell asleep drunk and cooking in the middle of the night, and arson in the basement of an apartment building. Both times the fire department response was fast and huge with multiple trucks, and they contained the fire immediately so only one truck was needed. The apartment fire multiple trucks had ladders up, though we didn’t end up needing to use them to evacuate.

Anyway I think sometimes it happens that multiple units respond to a single scene.