DANBURY, Conn. – Until recently, a call coming into the Danbury Fire Department meant alarms and tones immediately blasting at high volume — startling the firefighters before they headed out to scenes that could get their hearts pumping even faster.
Capt. Kevin Lunnie said the effect could be “overwhelming.” He noticed a big jump in his heart rate when the alerts went off, which isn’t a good thing in a profession where heart problems are the leading cause of on-duty deaths.
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But the city is now taking a gentler approach. A new system that went online in September includes alarms that start softer before gradually increasing in volume, while a computerized voice calmly announces the information the firefighters need to know about the incoming emergency.
“It’s much easier on your nervous system,” Lunnie said.
Danbury, a city of around 87,000 people in southwestern Connecticut, is using the new alerts in its five fire stations, joining thousands of other departments around the U.S. and world aiming to both reduce stress and improve response times.
A less alarming alarm
On a recent weekday, a call came into Danbury’s main fire station and the alert began with a single, soft tone. “Truck 1,” said the automated female voice. “Respond to sick person,” it said, giving the patient's address.
Around the firehouse, warm, red lighting flashed while monitors displayed the nature and location of the emergency. A timer display began to count down from two minutes, with the goal of firefighters leaving the station before the time ran out.
It’s both calmer and clearer than the old system, which began with full-volume single tones followed by cacophony of longer ones that fluctuated between high and low pitches. Dispatchers would previously announce the calls over the station speaker system, which firefighters said could be static-y and hard to understand.
“Most people found it very jarring,” Lunnie said of the system, which would jolt firefighters awake day or night.
The new setup is integrated into the computer-aided dispatching system. So when a dispatcher takes an emergency call and logs the initial information, it can alert the stations and units faster than department staff, while also sending the call information to firefighters’ phones and watches.
The result, according to Danbury Assistant Fire Chief William Lounsbury, is quicker response times.
Danbury tapped around $500,000 in funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act to pay for the new Phoenix G2 system, made by Honeywell subsidiary US Digital Designs. That same system is in nearly 6,000 firehouses around the U.S., according to Honeywell.
Other companies make similar alerting systems that are in many stations nationwide.
Supporters cite study on new systems' health benefits
Advocates of the gentler approach point to a decade-old study that found alert systems using an immediately loud sound increased firefighter heart rates by a median of seven beats a minute, compared with five beats a minute under a system that phased in the volume.
Although the difference was relatively small, researchers said it was statistically significant.
“When the alarm was used in a ramp-up fashion — so a gradual buildup on the alarm — the heart rate was lower to the alarm, so it put less stress on their body,” said Dr. Jay MacNeal, associate emergency medical services director for the Beloit Fire Department in Wisconsin and one of the study’s authors.
More than 40 Beloit firefighters took part in the study, which was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene in 2016 by researchers at the Emergency Medicine Department at Mercyhealth in Janesville, Wisconsin, and Yale University in Connecticut.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, of the 51 on-duty firefighter deaths in the U.S. in 2024, 20 were caused by sudden cardiac death, the leading cause of the fatalities.
Last year, the NFPA issued new standards for fire station alerts that include using alarms and tones that start at lower volumes, as well as calm, computerized voices, citing the need to reduce stress.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, a union representing more than 360,000 firefighters and paramedics in the U.S. and Canada, also supports progressive-volume alerting systems. But it is seeking specific standards on how they are designed.
Research on the best way to alert firefighters to emergency calls is lacking, and each system now on the market is different, said Sean DeCrane, the IAFF's assistant to the general president for health and safety.
“We would like to see an industry standard that really starts to define the decibel levels, the intervals, the integration of turning on the lights, what that progression should be, and we believe the standard should be based on research,” DeCrane said.