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I hear SFD say on the radio, when a fire is under control, "we have a tap fire".

I'm curious where the term "tap fire" came from... I googled, with no results.
Any one have an idea?

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Rob
N7LXI - Seattle

I think that you are hearing 'tapped' Fire is out.

A "tapped fire" refers to the old way that the fire alarm center would alert fire stations. It was done by "wireline" and used a special "code" like Morse Code. The dispatcher would "tap out" the alarm on wireline. A "Gamewll" machine, that looked like the old "Ticker Tap" machines would record the alarm -- on a punhed roll of tape. Thus a "tapped fire" refers to the fire that a station was dispatched to as being "under control".

Interesting thoughts, but I don't think it's quite right

I know about the old Gamewell system, and thus when a company was dispatched, it was referred to "tapping out" that company... just the way we still say a company was "toned out", even though most departments (at least around here) don't alert with two tone any longer.

But this is different.

When a working fire (or drill) is conducted on the radio, the attack company will attack the fire and report to the incident commander that "there is water on the fire" when they make the initial attack and then will report "TAP fire".

Specifically, not tapped... rather it's singular as in "We have a tap fire".

Just curious if there was a reason for it, similar to the way FDNY still uses "K" as a substitute for "over" at the end of a radio transmission.

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Rob
N7LXI - Seattle

You'll also here some of the old timers at SFD call "In the stall" when they have returned to quarters. Old reference to the horse drawn days. MTM's been round since those days. I'm sure he can verify it.

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I generate Board Warnings

LOL --- LOL Next you'll be saying that I owned the cow that started the Great Chicago Fire -- and not Mrs O'Leary. Not true. However --- I was in the barn at the time that the cow knocked over the lantern.

LOL. Thanks for your help guys.

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Rob
N7LXI - Seattle

As I say to my grandsons, "see that DIRT?, well I'm older than IT!"

speaking of tap-outs
Vancouver B.C. has just just switched over to the automated
tap-out system similar to seattle /kc.
eg
vancouver engine 7 --- motor vehical accident---- 1342 robson street --- corner
of robson street ---- and cardaro street .

I gather the firehalls have a radio that translates this call into a paper printout which thay call a rip and run radio???
kinda wierd to hear this form of dispatching after having a real human doing the dispatching for many years but thats the way of the future I guess.

xjf79

monitoring radio comms on both sides of the border in am/fm/ssb/
p25 and dstar

I was told exactly the same thing that MTM is talking about. I work with and know some firefighters who have been around a LONG time and they mention the Gamewell/Ticker tape system that "taps" out the codes (mostly the box locations) to the firefighter at what was called the watch desk.

Some say "tap" or "tapped", but it all means the same thing. But the term did come from the old days.

Hey just me -- giving everyone more un-needed information. The first alarm center -- for the Seattle Fire Dept was at old Fire Station One -- that was torn down when Interstate 5 was built. Then Station 10 became the Fire HQ -- in downtown. The fire alarm / callbox system was "hardline" both above and underground. So all of the cables first went to Fire Station ONE and then had to be re-directed to station TEN. Then the Fire Alarm Office was built -- ON the spot that the space needle now sits. Then they moved the Fire Alarm Center about another 1000 feet away -- . All of the cable from downtown is re-routed Underground -- to just under the space needle and then re-routed to the existing FAC.

My MTM, you must be older than me! I worked on equipment at the old SFD dispatch center under the monorail at the Seattle Center in the late 70's. I didn't realize that the center was previously at the site of the Space Needle.

Here is an interesting video from 1958 that shows an ADT central station. They used the same type of McCullough loop technology that was used by SFD:

http://www.archive.org/details/ADTWhenE1958

Fire is tapped = fire is out

Being tapped out = being dispatched to something. Similar to Gamewell system, in rural fire departments that equip their volunteers with pagers, dispatchers used to have to "tap" out the tones to get the pagers to alert sort of like on a piano type thing. Today the hertz of the tones/spacing/timing/everything else is all programmed into a console so now dispatchers just pust "Station 1" and the tones are automatically transmitted over the given frequency.

At least in Yakima County, that's our history and how things are/were done....

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Interoperability is an attitude, not a technology.

If you worked at the Fire alarm center back in the 1970's -- you must have had a radio on 33.90 Mhz -- low band. I worked for Kings Alarm in Los Angeles. Tic-Tic-Tic. Tic-Tic Tic-Tic-Tic. Then I would roll the cops or Fire to some Auto Parts store or a Liquior Store. My last girlfriend was born in 1971.

This was back in 1972 or so - SFD as well as SPD had just moved to UHF at the time. I remember this distinctly because I bought a new eight-channel Regency crystal controlled scanner just so I could listen to the "sophisticated" new UHF repeater-based system. It was so cool to be able to clearly hear both sides of the conversation!

I didn't actually work for SFD, I worked for an alarm company myself. At the time, all alarm central stations that monitored fire alarm systems in Seattle had to have what was known as a "retransmitter". When a fire alarm was received at the alarm company, the operator had to manually enter a code on a transmitting device and then send a code directly into the SFD's Gamewell system. This was in addition to calling in the alarm by telephone. SFD's policy required that the alarm company have two means of sending in the alarm.

My job was to build the transmitting device at the alarm company end, and then install corresponding equipment at the SFD end to tie into the Gamewell. A copper-pair that was leased from the phone company was used to connect the devices and send the tic-tic-tic, tic-tic-tic........

Man, that seems like a long time ago now!