Why is it that some pull stations say “local fire alarm” on them?
In this sense, “Local Alarm” refers to a system not connected to a monitoring service/FD. When activated, the alarm will only sound within the building; no signal will be sent out.
This was pretty common on older systems, not found nearly as often today.
I saw in a school that I was in (but didn’t go to) where they had pull stations that said “local fire alarm” or maybe “local alarm”. I don’t think that school had a fire alarm system that wasn’t connected to a monitoring service.
They were likely just older devices that still existed from the days when there wasn’t monitoring there. My elementary school had several old pull stations that were labeled “Local” even though the new system dialed out to a central station.
The general public probably wouldn’t even notice these details, so it’s no big deal to leave them installed.