Ian
"I also doubt whether a brigade nowadays would be prepared to accept a delay without a VERY strong argument in its favour backed up by a thorough risk assessment. Even then, the arrangements are only as good as the current management"
I know that I am going 'off topic' but with the current modernisation of the Fire Services I should think that delayed calls to fire alarms will become VERY commonplace. Statistics, (which I know is a posh term for lying, whoops, dropped a Gilligan there), indicate 95% plus of alarms turn out to be false and in our evidence-driven society will become easy meat for cuts. Incidentally, in one large metropolitan fire service one in ten 'false alarms' were actually returned as something else. That something else may have been over-heated light fittings or similar but I would suggest that such a figure justifies calling the fire service on every occasion the alarm goes off. (otherwise, why turn out to bin or car fires, I expect someone can turn up statistics that show that they hardly ever spread to other property).
I know I am at one with Colin, (hmmm), in that the primary effort should go into stopping the bloody alarm going off in the first place, with good design, management, etc.
Sorry here endeth the rant.
