TO IMPROVE FIRE ALARMS.
All Engine Houses Will Connect
With Headquarters on Direct Wires.
Contracts were made yesterday with the telephone companies by the fire and water board for improving the fire alarm system. Each of the twenty-five engine houses are to be connected with headquarters by direct line, and in this way it will be possible to communicate with one engine house without disturbing the other twenty-four as is now the case. Under the present system all the houses are connected on a circuit, and besides having its disadvantages in communication puts a number of companies out of communication if anything happens to the circuit.
By making this new arrangement with the telephone companies the board is now enabled to install gongs at thickly traversed and populated sections, to be rung when fire apparatus is approaching in answer to alarms.
