WHEN A LADY IN WENTWORTH, NOVA SCOTIA, GOT HOME from a trip early Friday morning, she found her house filled with smoke.

At first she ran down to the basement to check her furnace and saw that the smoke was coming from her flue and no flames were visible.

The Halifax Herald tells Leah Palmer’s story:

The 911 operator took her information and stayed on the line with her until she was turned over to the Amherst dispatcher.

“She asked the same questions as the 911 lady did. When I hung up I expected her to call out the Wentworth fire department, which is about a 10-minute drive.”

“We waited and waited. My sister just got finished saying that it was taking the fire department a long time to get here when I got a call back from the Amherst (dispatcher).

“I couldn’t believe it. It was 1:04 a.m. and the dispatcher was calling me to see if everything was OK. I told her it wasn’t. She asked if I wanted her to call the fire department and I told her, ‘Of course I want you to call the fire department.’

“I couldn’t believe that 29 minutes had gone by and that she hadn’t called the fire department yet.”

After confirming that she positively, absolutely needed the fire department, they were dispatched at 1:06 and arrived at her home at 1:15.  Fortunately the fire never got out of the flue pipe and they were able to extinguish it and clear the smoke out of the house in a couple of hours.

The dispatcher claims that she forgot to dispatch fire because she was busy sending a police officer after a drunk driver.

Miss Palmer wraps it up nicely:  “This should never have happened. It makes me think that maybe it was better back in the days when the fire call went directly to the fire chief’s house and he called out his firefighters.”

You can read the full story HERE.

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