In message
, at
07:45:56 on Sun, 17 Jul 2011, D7666 remarked:
On Jul 17, 3:31*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

Inspector Sands is an alert (or alarm if you must) to advise station
staff that a fire alarm point has been activated.

No it is not.

Meanwhile, a fire alarm "sounding" is often abbreviated to "a fire
alarm". Or as you have earlier called it a "fire alert".

NO I DID NOT.

I said alert. Not fire alert.

"an alert (or alarm if you must) to advise station staff that a
fire alarm point has been activated."

At no point did I ever say fire alert.

It looks very like an "activation of a fire alarm" alert, to me.

And this is exactly where you have got this wrong.

OK, so what other word(s) should we use for this alert arising from the
activation of a fire alarm point?

The equipment itself (if this is public-facing) says "Use the fire alarm
if you see fire or smoke". For generic "Emergencies" there's a different
thing to press.
--
Roland Perry