RFPD16, the area served by the Klein Volunteer Fire Department, has one of the highest assessed residential property values in Harris County. The value is near 30 billion dollars.  Not much industry is located in the district so most of the value is in the homes in the community.  The community has a mix of homes ranging from the middle $50K up to and beyond $5,000,000.  Some of these homes are in excess of 30,000 square feet.  Because of the high value of many of the homes in RFPD16, many have automatic fire detectors.  Some of the alarms in the older homes date back 15 years.  Most new homes come with the house pre-wired for these alarms and all the homeowner does is sign up for a monitoring service.  These service companies may or may not be located in the same area or even the same state. 

During a typical year KVFD will run some 1600 fire calls. Of these almost 30% are false alarm calls to homes with faulty detectors, or detectors set off by things other than smoke such as painters, janitorial services and bad weather events.  KVFD experiences more false alarms than any of our surrounding fire departments.  This means on an average that KVFD responds to two false alarms every 24 hours.  Over the past 16 years there have been less than five alarms actually caused by a fire in the home. Of these, the alarm was received at about the same time as the homeowner called or a neighbor noticed smoke and called 911.  The rest, some 5000 or more, were false.

This increasing false alarm rate has taxed the legitimate ability of the fire department to respond to real emergencies.  It costs about $300 per run to send a fire truck to an automatic alarm.  It is also sapping the energy of the volunteers as they wake up in the middle of the night to respond to an automatic alarm for the second or third time that day at the same residence. It is also dangerous because it puts a 35,000-pound fire truck, running emergency, on the crowded streets of our community responding to a mistake.  Think about the consequences if that truck is involved in an accident responding to a malfunctioning alarm. 

Individual homeowners must take responsibility for maintaining their alarm systems in working order.  They must insist that the alarm company they contract with installs and maintains the equipment so it does not send out false alarms.  If the alarm accidentally activates, the alarm company should be notified immediately to prevent them from calling the Klein Fire Dispatcher.  If the cable television in your home went out, you would call the cable company right away.  You should handle a malfunctioning alarm the same way.  Homeowners should also keep their alarm companies current as to how to reach key holders or neighbors who can help the fire department when they arrive.  A surprising number of residents move into a new home and have no idea they are covered by a service because the seller never told the alarm company they had moved out.

KVFD supports and encourages the installation of smoke detectors that give local audible alarms.  These do an excellent job of alerting the residence to a fire danger and help get the occupants out before it’s too late. A final note, remember what happened to the three little rabbits who hollered wolf so many times?  The woodchopper stopped coming back to save them!