Fire Alarm at Ashland Square Shopping Center

The fire alarm went off one night, so I decided to whip out the camera! This was on 29 November, 2008. The warning siren that went off at the fire station is a Whelen WPS-2805. The first vehicle that arrived was a POV (privately-owned vehicle), and the guy parked it in a random spot way off from the box (which by the way, does not have switches to shut off the alarm, it instead contains keys for the businesses in the building.) This was a good 20 minutes after the alarm first went off. Another 10 minutes or so later, and a fire pickup from Hopkinton arrived on scene. Another few minutes went by, this was now over half an hour after the alarms had started going off, and Hopkinton Engine #2 arrived. This is a 2001 E-One Cyclone, equipped with a Federal Signal Q siren. By the time the alarms had been deactivated, a POV, a fire pickup, a fire engine, and a police cruiser had all arrived on scene, for what was ultimately a false alarm, and we had known since it went off, that it was a false alarm. The overall response time from the alarm going off until all vehicles were on scene, and the alarm finally deactivated, was over 35 minutes. The Japanese restaurant in the corner of the building, Ichiban, had something go off with their grill, possibly not turning an exhaust fan on before the grill was turned on, something minor like that, which set off the alarm. Notice at the beginning I tried to get our delivery driver out on the road with his next two orders so they wouldn't be late. Since we knew it was a false alarm, I ended up running back inside a couple times to answer the phone, because whoever was calling, was ringing through for a good while, and I decided to let them know to call back later. (The phones are right by the door anyway, so no worries.) © Katsuki Lennox