Police-first policy cuts wasted efforts from false alarms
By: Nick Norlen
The ordinance requiring Princeton Borough Police to officially respond first to fire alarms and thus cut down on firefighters’ response to false calls has been successful so far, police and fire officials said.
Passed unanimously in March by Princeton Borough Council, the ordinance requires police to respond first only to calls received from residences and businesses served by central monitoring stations often the source of false alarms.
The change has come as relief to the three-station Princeton Fire Department, which Station 63 Deputy Chief Truestar Urian called "one of the most active in the county."
He said the ordinance, as intended, has prevented firefighters from constantly rushing to "situations where no fire department response was really needed."
According 2006 statistics, nearly a third of calls from single- and two-family dwellings were false alarms.
But borough Fire Official William Drake said Wednesday that initial data collected by the borough since the change shows a significant decrease in the number of false alarms responded to by firefighters.
Although the data applies to single-family dwellings in both the borough and the township, Mr. Drake cited a 60 percent decrease in the number of false alarms responses by the fire department for the period of January through June in 2007, compared to the previous year.
Furthermore, situations that were among the concerns raised before the ordinance’s passing that the system would delay firefighters’ response to real fires have not come into play, he said.
"To date we have not heard a single complaint," Mr. Drake said. "To my knowledge, we’ve not had a situation where only the police responded and it turned out to be a real fire."
Although Mr. Urian, who is one of the dispatchers for the Borough Police Department, said he had initial concerns about the change "You have somebody responding to a possible five-alarmer that doesn’t necessarily have any training at all," he said the new system has worked well so far, he said.
Borough Police Chief Anthony Federico credited the smooth transition to the fact that nothing has actually changed about the police department’s response to fires.
Mr. Urian agreed.
"The police department was already responding to these calls and most of the time getting there before us," he said. "All (the ordinance) really changed was that they had the power to recall us" from a false alarm."
He said the frequent responses to false alarms had led to what he called the "boy who called wolf syndrome" and took a toll on the morale of the all-volunteer department.
Now, firefighters are called away from their homes and places of work less often, he said.
"Guys don’t get burned out so fast," he said.
In addition, the stations aren’t unnecessarily putting wear on their million-dollar apparatus every time a call comes in, he said.
Borough officials also included a measure in the ordinance to attempt to reduce the number of false alarms by setting a fee rate for false alarms.
Starting in 2008, the current annual cost of $35 for all borough alarm system users will include a $100 fee for every false alarm, Mr. Drake said.
But because the majority of the alarm systems in the borough are in commercial properties, the new penalty isn’t expected to have a major impact on homeowners, he said.
Regardless of the initial promise of the new system, officials will continue to monitor the effectiveness of police responding to fires first, Mr. Drake said.
He said police and fire officials from both municipalities will likely meet in October to review the new system and address any concerns.
Princeton Fire Department Chief Jamie Alkhateeb was not available for comment.

