It goes nee-naw

A firefighter prides themselves on an instinctive ability to distinguish the different emergency service sirens. More than once, my self-esteem has crumbled after a rich vein of form with that ability has come to a shuddering halt.

Each emergency service has a particular tone that it is identified with historically and in the popular consciousness, still colloquially known as two-tone or the blues and twos. But they all now have a variety of sirens — a nee-naw; a faster-paced yelp; a long, stretched-out wail. Consequently, the distinctions between them are subtle and I have gone from an unshakable faith in my ability to guess to a place of indecision and insecurity. I’m rebuilding my confidence by guessing but keeping it to myself.

The variations give you options. One driver on the green watch relentlessly jumps from tone to tone in a catchy but irritating way, like Skrillex on a pinger. One can be heard from further away, some work better at high speed, others are easier for drivers to pick out directionally.

People also tend to tune out a single siren, which is mitigated by changing it up — a short sudden change also functions like a horn. Drivers are taught to approach a junction with one tone, and switch to another, usually a faster one, before crossing, to refocus other drivers’ attention on them.

Similarly, if more than one fire appliance is on the blues in convoy, the second must have a different siren to the first, as people have a tendency to assume there’s only one and to pull out after it’s passed.

There are two shouts we will go to not on the bell. The most common is “shut in lift — non-emergency”, where the persons are stuck but perfectly calm and there’s no medical emergency. A non-emergency emergency response is a paradox to many firefighters, and often we are mobilised because we’re free to the council whereas paying a lift engineer is not. But I quite enjoy them, each lift a little puzzle — although not so much at 4am.

The other is when a home fire safety visit where the risk is sufficient to require an immediate response, such as a bedbound person living largely alone with no smoke alarms. This isn’t technically an incident but we are mobilised via the bells and teleprinter as if it is.

(Slightly confusingly, the mobilising noise is referred to as the bells plural, as in “when the bells go down”, whereas the siren — “on the bell” — is singular.)

We also won’t always use the bell when relieving crews on a job, depending on the circumstances. It’s always a bit of shame when you don’t. The view of London from the back of a fire engine on the blues and twos is one of the best views in the world.