When you dial 999 and ask for the Fire Service, your call is sent to the emergency call handling centre which routes all calls for your area to Fire Control - calls are normally answered within 1 to 5 seconds. Control will confirm with you the address of the incident and help will be despatched to you immediately.
When your call is received, Control staff enter details in the Command and Control system. This system automatically finds the closest appliances and officers to respond, and activates the turnout system at the nearest fire station - turning on the audible alarms, part-time firefighters' personal alerters, lights at night and any other facilities connected to it. The address of the call is sent to the fire station teleprinter, the officers' pagers and, on selected vehicles, to mobile data terminals in the cabs of the appliances.
Control initially mobilise to each incident with a specific response which is called a Pre-Determined Attendance (PDA). The PDA to an incident will vary considerably dependent on many considerations, such as:
Fire and Rescue operate 2 radio channels within their vehicles and all officers and appliances attending incidents can keep Control informed of where they are and what they are doing.
When they arrive at the incident, they may require more assistance and this is requested over the radio scheme. All requests for further assistance are monitored by Fire Control as they have a complete overview of all the resources which are available in the area and the neighbouring counties and can quickly mobilise additional fire engines to support those in attendance.
To ensure that all details, such as road and place names, are communicated accurately, Control use the nationally recognised phonetic alphabet.
One of the important jobs that Fire Control staff have to do is to make sure that cover is maintained at fire stations so that, when further calls are received, Control staff will make standby moves, mobilising fire engines to fire stations to ensure that they are available for subsequent incidents.
Every call and radio message is automatically recorded at the time. This recorded information can be used as evidence and people making malicious false alarm calls can be prosecuted. False calls can mean that fire engines mobilised to such occurrences can reduce availability and response times for real emergency situations.
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