Should WYFRS buy 1,333 special smoke alarms a year instead of a Assistant Chief Fire Officer (or even 2)?

Hayley from Morley brought to our attention an article in the Fire Training News September Edition. It is about smoke detectors.

A smoke detector has been developed that sends its owner a text when it goes off.It does this by using standard GSM technology for mobile phones. This means it needs its own SIM card. There are moves afoot to develop a smoke detector that uses Wi-Fi. In this way it could send an email. Useful and far less expensive if you have a Smart phone. Many people may want to wait until the price drops
– it’s currently about £90 + SIM card.

NOW after we had stopped laughing - the thought of geting a text whilst you are on holiday did raise a few chuckles - (YOUR HOUSES IS ON FIRE . LOL. Smoke detector XXX)   this technology has some implications for in particular people who are deaf or maybe even for families who have elderly parents as no doubt the SMS message or email could be sent to multiple addresses to warn of danger.

And as to the £90 ---(£89.99 actually) --- if  WYFRS can replace ACOs at £120k each we reckon 1,333 of these smoke alarms may represent better value for money. And as the price of ACO's will no doubt increase year on year and the price of these drop - even better! And you can replace smoke alarms without paying them a pension. 


So how do smoke alarms work...........

BUT H's email raised another eyebrow too.....

It raised concern in the FCCL office as if you read one of our previous posts the consultation documents and processes have recently been succeeded by information about floods in being given "star billing" .

We at FCCL would have thought with the professional media  staff they have at WYFRS they would have thought to have added a direct hyper-link to the consultation pages and not just to the homepage for WYFRS embedded  in the Fire Training News Magazine. Does this mean that WYFRS are trying not to advertise the consultation? 

Yes we think it does! 

and if you would like to read other editions of the fire training newsletter they are available here