$100 million dollar fire lose blamed on silenced Fire Department house siren

Residents of one New Jersey City woke up today to find their beloved shopping mall burned to the ground. According to the fire chief his members could have saved the building, if they had been notified to respond.

About a month ago residents noticed that a family of endangered osprey birds were building a nest in the siren atop the fire hall. Federal laws prevent the disturbance of endangered animal’s homes.

Meaning that the siren has to be deactivated until the birds migrate south next winter. City officials were not concerned because all the volunteers carry pagers. As one city official said “why do we even still have that siren when all the vollys have a pager on their belt?”

Over night the county dispatch center was undergoing a software update. A glitch in the upgrade caused the communications system to go off line for four hours. As luck would have it this coincided with the time the fire started.

The dispatch center was still able to radio out to road deputies via handheld radios. But the simulcast pager system used by fire department could not be activated.

So what could have been just a small fire contained to one restaurant in the food court, grew to engulf the full mall. Property management from the mall tells CallTheCops, the building it a total loss.

As noted fire service blogger Dave Statter said “For those who are looking for someone to blame, I think you connect this one directly to the policies of a liberal president. Woodrow Wilson was in charge when the first treaty was signed protecting migratory birds almost 100-years-ago”