What Does Nine Alarm Fire Mean

A 4 alarm fire would be a general alert for all available units in the city to respond to the fire.

What does nine alarm fire mean. However it is usually just an indication of how many tanker ladder truck. To this day the chicago fire department ranks its fires as 2 11 3 11 4 11 and so on instead of the more familiar multi alarm ratings. It used to end at four alarms. So with each alarm that sounded the number of fireman called on to respond increased.

Sounds big but what. This is considered to be a multiple alarm fire. Every degree alarm requires a different number of response units which can be any type of vehicle including fire engines ladder trucks and supervisor trucks. Not every city used the same codes.

Fire companies send a different number of response units for each degree. One alarm fires two alarm fires three alarm fires etc are categories classifying the seriousness of fires commonly used in the united states and in canada citation needed particularly indicating the level of response by local authorities. It eventually became a six alarm fire after starting early wednesday jan. 27 in a commercial building in the 1000 block of canal street in new orleans.

But with the changes to technology the number of people and units that could be brought in has increased though they don t ring bells anymore they have kept the terminology.