Take a Marker

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turk132

Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
571
Your company is assigned to a run, but then cancelled. The dispatcher will say "Take a mark (record the run in your journal) and remain in service". Also refers to recording information in the houswatch journal.
 
firebuffkevin

firebuffkevin

Joined
Nov 27, 2008
Messages
8,451
turk132 said:
Your company is assigned to a run, but then cancelled. The dispatcher will say "Take a mark (record the run in your journal) and remain in service". Also refers to recording information in the houswatch journal.
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Thank you Turk
 
L

londonfireguy

Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
633
I believe this phrase started in the early war years, when units were running from fire to fire or run to run all tour long without returning to the firehouse, company officers would mark down the number of runs they had on a piece of scrap paper or similar tucked in their pockets.. hence if they were assigned to a run or worker, but were not needed, the statement would indeed be 'take a mark and remain in service', the term 'take a mark' in the literal sense.

JT
 
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Bigandy

Guest
I remember reading that the busy companies were only allowed to have a specified set of runs and then they were put out of service. However, all the busy companies always had a officer who would make sure they never reached that magic number, by losing a few runs here and there. Goes to show, we'll never know truly how many runs they did  ;D
 
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