How did alert systems fail to notify Detroit firefighters of fatal house fires?

In just five days, two people died in separate house fires after Detroit firefighters were delayed by a malfunctioning alert system.

The failures came less than a year after “The Colbert Report” mocked the city’s antiquated alert system, which at the time involved crude methods like rigging a pop can to a printer.

The city has since updated the system and even added several layers of notifications, including a cell phone app called Bryx. Firefighters also are alerted by land line phones and a radio.

“We have safeguards in place,” Mayor Mike Duggan spokesman Dan Austin told me. “We are working to get to the bottom of this.”

For reasons that remain unclear, firefighters said they were delayed because the updated printer alert systems and cell phone apps failed to work.

At 1:20 a.m. on Sept. 26, firefighters from downtown’s Engine #1 were delayed by four minutes while a 73-year-old man was beginning to burn to death in his house in the blossoming neighborhood of Woodbridge. Although they were only 1.6 miles away, they took 12 minutes to arrive because of the delayed alert.

Four days later, at 1 a.m., firefighters from multiple companies said the printer alert system and cell phone apps never sounded, causing another delay as a man was dying from smoke inhalation inside a house at 2069 Lawley. About five minutes passed between the 911 call and the time firefighters were en route, records show.

City officials are trying to determine if all of the alerts failed or just a couple.
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Firefighters were eventually roused by dispatchers over the radio, but critical time had already passed.

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Steve Neavling

Steve Neavling lives and works in Detroit as an investigative journalist. His stories have uncovered corruption, led to arrests and reforms and prompted FBI investigations.

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