According to Raymond Chen's blog:

Raynmond Chen:

A friend of mine happened to have a chat with a fire fighter who used to be assigned to the fire station nearest to Microsoft main campus. According to him, the top three reasons for being called to a Microsoft building are (in no particular order)

• Burnt popcorn.
• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.
• Somebody pulls the fire alarm because they are under a lot of stress because they missed a deadline, and they think pulling the fire alarm will buy them some time. (Where do they think they are, college?)

I bet the third one (pulling a false alarm) happens a lot more than anybody wants to admit.

How does pulling a false alarm get you more time?  You need to leave the building too.

locallunatic:

How does pulling a false alarm get you more time?  You need to leave the building too.

It gives you a fake excuse that your stuff isn't on time, with the hope the boss doesn't realize it still would have been late even if the alarm hadn't been pulled.

locallunatic:

How does pulling a false alarm get you more time? You need to leave the building too.

The kind of idiot who bites off more than he can chew before the deadline is the same kind of idiot who doesn't think through his idiotic plan to dodge the deadline.

locallunatic:

How does pulling a false alarm get you more time? 

After you get fired for pulling the alarm when there is no emergency you will have plenty of free time.

El_Heffe:

Where do they think they are, college?

Heh, the fire department was called all the time when I was at uni. We'd have barbecues near the Engineering building, and the wind would blow the smoke into the building and set off the detectors. Even closing the doors seemed to make no difference.

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

pjt33:

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

If you call for an ambulance, firefighters show up,too. It gives them all something to do:

boomzilla:

pjt33:

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

If you call for an ambulance, firefighters show up,too. It gives them all something to do:

Lies, damn lies and statistics in action I see, lets have a go myself:

(Raw data: Fires, Firefighters)

 

pjt33:

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

Same reason you yell "fire" when you fall in a vat of chocolate.

 

PJH:

boomzilla:

pjt33:

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

If you call for an ambulance, firefighters show up,too. It gives them all something to do:

Lies, damn lies and statistics in action I see, lets have a go myself:

(Raw data: Fires, Firefighters)

So apart from not labeling your axes and switching the colors, how is your graph different?

Ben L.:

So apart from not labeling your axes and switching the colors, how is your graph different?

The first was laziness, the second accidental - the main point I was making was by starting both Y origins at 0 and keeping the same scale.

Ben L.:

So apart from not labeling your axes and switching the colors, how is your graph different?

 

Boomy's fucked graph does not explicitly show tear lines at the bottom of each axis and is misleading for that.

It also gives the idea that from ~1996 there is a "surplus" of firefighters which is also misleading.

PJ's fucked graph appears to be intentionally misleading by plotting fires and fighters on the same axis, as though they are the same unit and 1 fighter can douse 1 fire, thus falsely giving the idea that everything's terrible because there are way more fires than fighters. At least it shows the proper development for both sets of values.

 

Why am I explaining this?

 

Well.

 

 

Maybe just for myself.

 

*sobs quietly in a corner*

dhromed:

Boomy's fucked graph does not explicitly show tear lines at the bottom of each axis and is misleading for that.

I will argue that putting the two on the same scale is the wrong way to look at the data. With their own scales, it effectively normalizes the values while keeping the absolute context (there is still an argument about cutting off the bottom of each scale, of course). So, roughly half the fires, but a third more fire fighters. PJH's graph makes it look like there was almost no change in career firefighters, which is obviously not right (as he implied). Of course, there are always trade offs in this sort of thing.

TRWTF is I really should have linked the other graph:

boomzilla:

TRWTF is I really should have linked the other graph:

 

Now that's a good graph.

Except what's a medical call to the fire dept? Please help my husband broke his leg and can't get out of this tree?

 

dhromed:

Except what's a medical call to the fire dept? Please help my husband broke his leg and can't get out of this tree?

Yes. They generally accompany an ambulance whenever an ambulance shows up. No one calls the fire department directly. You just call 911 (in the US, YMMV) and they deal with contacting the responders (police, paramedic, fire, etc). Though I think in this graph they don't mean telephone call, but something more like a service call made by the fire department.

boomzilla:

So, roughly half the fires, but a third more fire fighters.

Not really; roughly half the fires but the same number of fire fighters - you ignored the ranks of volunteer fire fighters which have been decreasing by about the same amount annually as professional fire fighters have been increasing.

Source: NFPA

rad131304:

boomzilla:

So, roughly half the fires, but a third more fire fighters.

Not really; roughly half the fires but the same number of fire fighters - you ignored the ranks of volunteer fire fighters which have been decreasing by about the same amount annually as professional fire fighters have been increasing.

Source: NFPA

Good point. Half the fires, but more cost. The post that I linked actually talks about this issue.

 When your husband weighs 700 lbs and needs the fire crew to chop a bigger hole in the wall to hoist him through, the fire dept. is useful on a heart attack call in America.

da Doctah:

 

pjt33:

El_Heffe:

• Somebody has a panic attack and mistakes it for a heart attack.

Why would you call a fireman if you have a heart attack?

Same reason you yell "fire" when you fall in a vat of chocolate.

 

Well of couse.  If you yell "chocolate!!" nobody will pay attention to you.

 

El_Heffe:

Well of couse.  If you yell "chocolate!!" nobody will pay attention to you.

To the contrary. Everybody loves chocolate, and they'll all run to where they heard the shout. However, everyone in their excitement will also fall into the vat and instead of one fatality, you'll have dozens of fatalities.

boomzilla:

dhromed:

Except what's a medical call to the fire dept? Please help my husband broke his leg and can't get out of this tree?

Yes. They generally accompany an ambulance whenever an ambulance shows up. No one calls the fire department directly. You just call 911 (in the US, YMMV) and they deal with contacting the responders (police, paramedic, fire, etc). Though I think in this graph they don't mean telephone call, but something more like a service call made by the fire department.

Plus in the US firefighters normally have to spend time as EMTs before they get certified and they have good response times.

boomzilla:

Yes. They generally accompany an ambulance whenever an ambulance shows up.

WHY??

note: US-centric!  Ambulance = municipal emergency medical unit  (not the kind 

 We're thinking of it backwards, really.
 IIRC - in many places, YMMV, the policy is to FIRST send the firemen to a medical emergency,
and SECOND, send an ambulance/medic unit if it's available.  So, much of the time, both go.

Why? There are more pieces of fire equipement than ambulances, so - on average- response time goes
down, and the odds of somebody useful getting there Really Soon(tm) goes up.

And, in general, it's useful to have extra help around - crowd control, help with disraught relatives, or
first-aid not needing transport. They also like having the engine itself around for blocking the road
for the safety of the ambulance crew (or just to block my way and piss me off)

And, as shown, with incidence of actual fires going down, the fire engines might as well respond to
medical calls as sit idle at the firehouses.

It's actually a super-cool subject for math-weenies

ijij:

And, in general, it's useful to have extra help around - crowd control, help with disraught relatives, or
first-aid not needing transport. They also like having the engine itself around for blocking the road
for the safety of the ambulance crew (or just to block my way and piss me off)

 

That does sound rather like wasteful use of resources.

Fire engines are designed with a purpose in mind - not sure that being repurposed as a road blocker was a design consideration.

Similarly, firecrew are first and foremost trained in tackling and putting out fires - putting them to use as crowd control and councellors either sounds like you've got too many firemen or not enough work for them to do. I'd also hate to be a homeowner that discovered the delay in a firecrew getting to my property to put out a fire was due to them performing crowd control duties elsewhere.

So? They were just sitting on their asses anyway, and now that everybody on Earth has radios it's not like they NEED to be at the fire station in case a fire breaks out.

Fire services are one of those things where you're overstaffed 99% of the time and drastically understaffed the other 1%. Not much you can do about that. If going to medical emergencies makes them feel more useful, than good for them.

ijij:

...and the odds of somebody [i.e. a fireman] useful getting there [to a medical emergency] Really Soon(tm) goes up.

So firemen in the US are trained, and have the equipment, to give medical aid to those suffering from heart attacks or anaphylaxis? Interesting. What's the point in having ambulances then?

PJH:

So firemen in the US are trained, and have the equipment, to give medical aid to those suffering from heart attacks or anaphylaxis? Interesting. What's the point in having ambulances then?

Pump or ladder trucks won't have everything on hand, but the ambulances run by the fire department will.  Part of the reason for the faster response times by the fire department is that the ambulances that aren't part of the department aren't well funded (which means they do less, and so get less funding).

boomzilla:

dhromed:

Except what's a medical call to the fire dept? Please help my husband broke his leg and can't get out of this tree?

Yes. They generally accompany an ambulance whenever an ambulance shows up. No one calls the fire department directly. You just call 911 (in the US, YMMV) and they deal with contacting the responders (police, paramedic, fire, etc). Though I think in this graph they don't mean telephone call, but something more like a service call made by the fire department.

 EMTs often ride on a fire vehicle.

ijij:

And, as shown, with incidence of actual fires going down, the fire engines might as well respond to
medical calls as sit idle at the firehouses.

There's also another consideration. Firefighters are, on average, much better at lifting heavy things and navigating stairs with them than EMTs. Stretchers are heavy. Stretchers with people on them are heavier. Residences often conveniently lack elevators and access ramps.

And then there's the fact that many municipal fire departments also own ambulances these days and also provide that service, and many/most firefighters cross-train as EMTs.