A fire alarm box is an outdoor device used for notifying a fire department

Fire department

A fire department or fire brigade is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district...

 of a fire. Early boxes used the telegraph system and were the main method of calling the fire department to a neighborhood in the days before people had telephones. When the box is triggered, a spring-loaded wheel spins and taps out a signal onto the fire alarm telegraph wire, indicating the box number. The receiver at a fire station

Fire station

A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...

 then can match the number to the neighborhood. The boxes are a form of street furniture

Street furniture

Street furniture is a collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed on streets and roads for various purposes, including traffic barriers,...

 still in service in many places, though many towns and cities are now questioning whether they are worth the cost to maintain.

History

The first practical fire alarm system utilizing the telegraph system was developed by Dr. William Channing and Moses G. Farmer

Moses G. Farmer

Moses Gerrish Farmer was an electrical engineer and inventor. Farmer was a member to the AIEE, later known as the IEEE.-Biography:...

 in 1852. Two years later, they applied for a patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 for their "Electromagnetic Fire Alarm Telegraph for Cities". In 1855, John Gamewell of South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 purchased regional rights to market the fire alarm telegraph, later obtaining the patents and full rights to the system in 1859. John F. Kennard bought the patents from the government after they were seized after the Civil War, returned them to Gamewell, and formed a partnership, Kennard and Co., in 1867 to manufacture the alarm systems. The Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Co. was later formed in 1879. Gamewell systems were installed in 250 cities by 1886 and 500 cities in 1890. By 1910, Gamewell had gained a 95% market share

Market share

Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...

.

Usefulness during communications disruptions

In New York City there are 15,000 call boxes. The September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

 knocked out cell phone service for a large part of the city. If the power is out, people will not be able to charge batteries in portable phones, and VoIP telephony typically will not work without power. The telegraph alarm boxes, on the other hand, are powered from a separate supply and will likely continue to work in the face of outages of both electrical and telephone systems.

Collecting

Decommissioned fire alarm boxes have become an item which people collect

Collecting

The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world...

. Some are collected as-is for their historical significance, while others are used for decoration. Entire boxes or parts may be found on online auction websites.

External links

• Gamewell-FCI company history
• list of cities with fire box alarm systems
• "No cause for alarm", Boston Globe, Jan 27, 2008 - Boston Globe article about cities and towns keeping or removing fire box alarm systems
• Fire alarm boxes in New York City
• Website of the Fire Department of New York