Purpose of fire whistles?

Question

Every time the fire department is called in my town, a very loud whistles blows for several minutes. What is the purpose of such a whistle?

With all the cell phone and beeper technology, fireman could surely be called by phone or with an alarm in their homes. Why should the whole town be woke up in the middle of the night? Public whistles should only be used in a public emergency, like a flood or tornado.

Answer 1

My dad's a fireman and he told me, like Nija said and as you already know, that the fire whistle was first used when they didn't have pagers and, also like Nijja said, they are used as backups incase the fireman doesn't have his pager on him or he isn't able to hear it, for whatever reason.

My dad also told me that the fire whistle was used as a Civil Service agent (I guess you could call it) and its purpose was to warn the civilians of dangers. Supposedly this was started in the 1950's when the Russians were threatening the USA. He told me that these days, in case of any threat, the alarms would probably repeatedly sound off to warn civilians to take cover.

Answer 2

It must have been used back in the day when firefighters didn't have pagers to get calls on and they use it as a backup too...

Answer 3

I think we make far too much noise -- so much, in fact, that any beings out there in the cosmos searching for intelligent life in our part of the galaxy has probably "thumb-tacked" our planet as "primitive & hostile."
Too bad the governments are in charge of "All Things of Major Importance to Mankind."
I realise this doesn't pertain to your question -- directly...... sorry 'bout that..........