For street fire alarms, the city used call boxes. When the lever was
> pulled, a clockwork would generate a coded signal denoting the
> firebox. These were removed a few years ago. As kids, we were taught
> to know where the nearest callbox was to our homes and to wait there
> to direct the arriving firemen to the fire. They date from a time
> people didn't have phones or speak English, and lasted a lot longer
> than they needed to given universal telephone service.
A local firefighter told me Athens, Georgia, removed its call boxes a few years ago because they were getting almost nothing but false alarms. This is probably a nationwide problem.