New Walmart has a fire scare!

By bracken1975
(0 votes) (report abuse)
Fire Truck pulls up to the new south Logan Walmart in response to a internal store fire alarm!
I was shopping at around 8:50 PM Tuesday night when an automated fire alarm went off inside the new south Logan Walmart, the automated voice and siren was going off telling everyone the leave through the nearest exit...most the customers ignored the siren due to smelling no smoke and seeing no fire, however the Walmart employees eventually rounded everyone up and herded them on the front doors...at 9:01 PM we were out in the parking lot with a bunch of employees and a few shoppers...the employees move way to the far back in the parking lot (west) at 9:19 the fire truck shows up (finally after 30 minutes since the alarm first sounded) and a fireman runs into the store... after 26 fruitless minutes wondering what was happening at 9:45 the fire truck headed out and everyone that was still waiting around headed back into the store to get their abandoned carts and make their way to the registers...Many patrons gave up the nearly hour long wait to get back to their carts, leaving an strange vibe as the store was littered with unpeopled carts, their frozen food thawing undisturbed in the bottom of their carts… At about midnight as I finished my first eventful shopping trip to the new south Walmart I ask an employee if there ever was a real fire and she said that they thought someone had just pulled the fire alarm as a prank...but more alarmingly she said the reason it took the fire department 30 full minutes to arrive at the new Walmart is they got "lost in the island" of Logan pulling up to a vacant house not realizing they where at the wrong address....thank goodness it wasn't a real fire... scary new address glitch!
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posted on Wed, Jun 24, 2009 01:18 AM
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anyone concerned? anyone care? bybracken1975 June 25, 2009 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
I love our fire dept (you all rock) but is anyone concerned it takes 30 minutes to drive less than 14 blocks in nearly a straight line to a well known Logan landmark, that is supposedly burning down?
Wal Mart Call byLoganfirechief June 30, 2009 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
I am the Logan City Fire Chief. The information reported as given to "Bracken1975" by a Wal Mart employee was NOT accurate. After interviewing the dispatchers and response personnel involved, as well as obtaining the alarm and phone records from Wal Mart Corporation's alarm company, and pulling and listening to the actual 9-1-1 and radio dispatch recordings, here is what we know that happened to cause the delayed response by the fire department: When the fire alarm began sounding in the Wal Mart at about 10 pm, it took the Wal Mart alarm company less than one minue to contact Logan's 9-1-1 center. As the Dispatch center was preparing to dispatch the fire department, a Logan police officer who happened to be in the building had a conversation with a female management employee of Wal Mart and was told that there was no fire and that the alarm was a false alarm due to alarm testing that had been going on all day. The Police officer passed that information to the 9-1-1 center. The dispatcher handling the call chose not to dispatch the fire department, but apparently did not advise the police officer to inform Wal Mart management. Therefore, when Wal Mart's management staff followed our requested procedure and evacuated the store, they were unaware that the fire department's response had been canceled. After about 15-20 minutes of waiting in the parking lot, Wal Mart management had their alarm company again contact Dispatch to find out where the fire department was. At that point, the alarm company was told the response had been canceled, but that they would now Dispatch the fire department immediately. It took the Logan City Fire Department only four minutes to respond and arrive at the Wal Mart, after it was Dispatched some 20 or 25 minutes after the alarm first sounded in the Wal Mart. These are the facts. This is what actually happened. There engine never got "lost in the Island area" as reported. Logan City apologizes to Wal Mart, its employees and its customers for the mix up and the delayed response. The fire department has been assured by the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center management staff that corrections have been made and that the incident will not happen again.
Thanks for your explaination, what a relief! bybracken1975 June 30, 2009 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
Thanks so much for your response and clarification. I just reported what I saw and heard and am happy to hear the other side of the story. I defend my timeline as my camera has a time stamp placed on every photo file and that is where I pulled my minutes elasped from. I am glad to hear there was a good reason for the "apparent" delay!

Ultimately firefighter create their own images by their own actions and performance levels, I think the fact that most people see them as heroes speaks very highly as to their amazingly good overall performance over time. When the occasions arrive that seem to be less than timely performance, it would be wise for the fire dept to offer a response to confirm or deny and add light to the situation. (Thanks for doing so)

In response to the emails I have recieved about me daring to show the fire fighters in a bad light, I think it unlikely one story could possibly tarnish their well earned hero status :-)

Thanks for the explaination! I can rest easier now...
Clarifying my times reported and minutes elapsed... bybracken1975 July 01, 2009 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
I used the times stamped on my photos (by my digital camera) to arrive at the times and minute elapsed in the time line above. After closer examination I realized my camera didn't adjust for daylight savings time and over the year or so since I set the time originally it has also lost about 9 minutes from "atomic" time. This means to get an accurate local time you need to add 1 hour and 9 minutes to my reported times above to be the correct local time that the event took place. With that being said, the minutes elapsed remain accurate and unaffected. After a closer examination of my time stamped photos and adjusting for the above explained time adjustment my first photo of customers/employees waiting in the parking lot was taken at 10:10PM (several minutes of waiting elapsed before I shot it) and the ladder truck arrived at 10:28PM (photo shows it still in motion)that is 18 minutes right there and that doesn't even include the time it took as people continued to shop for several minutes while the alarm was sounding and the time it took to stage an evacuation of the massive store by a large employee sweep nor the time we sat the in the parking lot before I decided to unpack all my gear and affix the correct lens and setup my tripod and shoot the first parking lot photo. The first customers are walking back into the store in a photo stamped at 10:57PM.

So if you take the fire chief's own reported time of "about" 10:00PM for the alarm sounding and my time stamped photo of the ladder trucks arrival at 10:28PM that is 28 minutes of wait time. I argue it was before 10:00 when it sounded, but sticking with "reported" time and the photo time stamps that puts it at 28 minutes between alarm and fire truck arrival. I don't wish to split hairs, but my time line accuracy was called into question and I wanted a chance to clarify it.

As for the "lost in the island" account, that is what the Walmart employee gave me as an explanation. Go yell at her for giving me the wrong explanation. I just reported what I saw and heard as a citizens account of the events...

Once again a hand to the Fire Department for taking the time to clarify the issue and with their own account. I feel much better now that I know the whole story. It looked really bad from my percpective that night, but with the new insights provided by the fire chief it looks a whole lot better and the "apparent" but ultimately wrong perception of a slow response makes much more sense.

Thanks to the firefighter who risk their lifes to save our necks!
Your reputation. LOL bypublicschools July 02, 2009 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
Obviously Mr. Bracken thinks very highly of himself to feel he needs to prove a point with his times. To proud to just say "sorry, I assumed and should have looked into this further". But no, you had to just keep proving some point, and that you were never in the wrong.
Yes, we should all go yell at the "supposed" walmart employee. She is the one who wrote the false information in the newspaper.
In fact, as accurate as most of your "reporting" has been, many of us are not even sure there was an employee. The problem was not that Mr. Bracken questioned the response, it was the false information and accusations that were thrown out. A simple "What happened" would have been sufficient.
As for the Fire department, It is a shame that you would have to go public to explain yourself. All it would have taken was a simple phone call by "Mr. critic" and the truth would have been known.

Thanks Chief Meaker, for your response to this critic, there was never any doubt that there was a logical reason behind the story.