Re:Attention Large, Multi-Jurisdictional Fire Comm Centers

[Guest guest]

I live around the Dayton Ohio area and the county that we are in is called

Montgomery County. I'm not sure if this is a statewide thing in Ohio, but I

do know that in Montgomery County all the fire stations were issued Station

numbers. Departments that had more than one station were given numbers in a

sequential order. However, some departments decided to use these numbers and

some did not.

I dispatch for 5 fire departments (and 3 police departments, but that's not

what we're talking about here...so...). The departments immediately

surrounding our comm center are Englewood Fire (hence Englewood

Communications), Union Fire (which is essentially the same department as

Englewood... I mean they share a fire chief and all...who knows <shrug>

politics I guess), and Clayton Fire. These stations are broken down as

follows:

Englewood has 2 stations:

Station 98 and Station 99

Union has 1 station:

Station 81

Clayton has 3 stations:

Station 83, Station 84, and Station 85

At each of these stations are certain apparatus (and pardon me for not being

a " fire guru " here, but they all look like fire trucks to me) and they are

all different and have a specific job to do. Our CAD system is set up for us

to dispatch certain apparatus to certain calls (ie. an injury accident gets

an engine, a rescue and a medic). Depending on where the call is tells us

which trucks to send from which stations (I know you all thought I had a

really HARD job, sorry to disappoint you.... but CAD does go down alot here

and then the brain kicks in!!)

At each of these stations we call the apparatus by name and number, for

example:

Clayton Medic 84, Engine 84 and Rescue 83 repsond to xxx N Main St. on an

auto accident at 0000 hours.

The recue truck resides at station 83 and therefore it's numbered for the

station it resides in. The medic and engine were from the closest station to

the accident.

If there are more than one type of apparatus (I know I keep using the wrong

word but I'm too tired to hunt down my dictionary) at a station... such as 2

engines at Station 98, they are called Engine 98 and Engine 198. Other fire

departments have adopted these same numbers issued by the county (i think)

and it seems to work pretty well for us. I won't even go into detail about

the other two fire departments I dispatch for becase their procedures and

numbering are all out of whack. It's great to get a newbie and start them on

fire side, teach them how to dispatch equipment for the three stations I

listed and then say, " everything you just learned for those stations has

NOTHING to do with the next one. " This seems to be where they all walk ot the

door <confused look on face> maybe it's the stress?

Anyway thanks for letting me ramble on and on... and I hope this helps.

Cheri'

Englewood Communications

Englewood, OH

P.S. To everyone going to the conference...... HAVE FUN for those of us

stuck working!!!!