General Information

The Dublin Fire Brigade control room is located in the headquarters of the central fire station located off Pearse street / Townsend Street in Dublin. The control room was opened in 1996 after replacing the previous one in the former Tara Street Station. It is a 3 storey air conditioned purpose built building and houses offices for the controllers and staff of the E.R.C.C. Eastern Regional Control Centre personnel and of course the control room and sub areas itself. The ERCC is at present staffed by Dublin Firefighters taking calls for Dublin for all fire operations as well as for fire calls for 12 other counties. They also respond in tandem all Dublin Fire Brigade ambulances to most of Dublin.

Health Service Executive Eastern Regional Ambulance Service controllers also staff the E.R.C.C .and dispatch their emergency and non emergency ambulance for most of Leinster as one of the 8 H.S.E. ambulance regions around Ireland. 

Since July 2004 a new shift system operated in the control room means that (fire brigade) staff are rotated between fire and control room duties with the majority of their time on control room operations. At any one time there are 5 firefighters and one supervisor / sub-officer in the control room with the same again on stand down time in the same building.This means that should the need arise for example in a major emergency the staff level can be doubled within a minute or two. Since the change over the number of calltaking positions has increased as well to 12.

In July 2004 the new STORM system (Strategic Tasking Operational Resource Management) was brought on stream.This new software (and hardware) system has greatly expanded the options available to calltakers with particular emphasis on map display which automatically displays the incident location on a second screen when the address is entered.

Setup

Each fire brigade controller has 4 computer screens one of which is generally used to take calls and one being used for searching of miscellaneous information.A third computer screen displays a map showing the incident location and any assigned vehicles.Operators also have a touchscreen computer which has a number of communication functions such as allowing the operator to take the call, dial out, operate the radio and communicate with crews out on the road as well as operating backup alerting systems and various other functions.

Fire Brigade Controllers

On a normal shift 5 firefighters and 1 sub officer / supervisor are in the control room with a mobilization officer in charge of the wider aspect of vehicle and personnel movements. One firefighter operates the radio system and uses a computer to keep the status of vehicles and messages updated e.g. at a fire, persons reported trapped, police req. etc. the other four firefighters are there primarily to answer emergency 999 / 112 calls and dispatch the appropriate response. They also liaise with other services such as the hospitals, gas, police, electricity, airport etc. as required.

The sub officer/ supervisor is in charge of the control room and will make any major decisions which may be referred to them. Their primary role is as a supervisor but due to the volume of calls received they may also take emergency calls.

Overseeing the whole operation primarily during serious incidents is the senior District officer called the mobilization officer who has a nearby office.

Call Taking Procedure.

The caller will ring 999 or 112 and a Eircom operator will ask which service do you require Gardai, Fire or Ambulance and if using a mobile phone where you are calling from.

When you ask for fire in Dublin you are then transferred to the Dublin Fire Brigade control room where a calltaker will answer "Fire and ambulance service"

Once a call is received the controller selects the type of incident given by the caller e.g. house fire, cardiac arrest and then types in the first few letters of the address and searches on it. The computer comes up with several matches and the correct one is picked. This means that the rest of the address plus additional directions are automatically retrieved from the data base and filled in.

An adjacent screen then displays the incident location on a colour map with hydrant locations etc.

A phone number is added and a key is pressed which lets the computer offer the appropriate response. The controller has the final say based on the information they have received. Once the key is pressed a message printout appears in the nearest station along with bells sounding for that particular vehicle. Crews already on the road are given the information via the radio.

Premises such as banks, hospitals factory's, church's etc. can be searched by name and again when found their details are already in the database.

A routine call would take about 30 seconds depending largely on the caller being able to give adequate location details.

The mapping system in the control room will show the location of the incident on the map as well as details such as hydrant location and water main sizes in the vicinity.

Decision Making

For those interested here are a few examples of the information a calltaker may need and the response they would send to that type of call: (Please note that this refers to Dublin only as each county has different initial responses which are decided upon by their Chief Fire Officer in conjunction with the Local Authority and budget!) Also Dublin is the only county to have all firefighters trained as Paramedics or Advance Paramedics and operating an Emergency Ambulance Service.

Report of a shed on fire.....

1. Address of fire along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when travelling from a particular direction etc.

2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.

3. Is everyone safe and away from the fire?

4. Is the fire near the house, is it a big shed, what is inside the shed e.g. gas cylinders, paint tins etc?

One or two fire appliances would be sent depending on the size of the shed it's proximity to the house, it's contents and the availability of water e.g. town or rural location.

Report of a cardiac arrest

This is an automatic response of a fire appliance and an ambulance as both have a crew of Paramedics (in Dublin) and carry oxygen and defibrillation equipment. In addition the ambulance carries intubation and drug therapy equipment for use by a Doctor or an Advanced Paramedic.

1. Address of the arrest along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when travelling from a particular direction etc.

2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.

3. Is anyone doing C.P.R. and do they want to try if so the calltaker will talk them through it using a series of preset on screen prompts from the PROCOM system.

4. If inside a large building the calltaker will ask the person to have people flagging down the rescuers to the nearest accessible point to the casualty.

Since brain death starts occurring within approximately 4-5 minutes it is imperative that crews arrive swiftly and that the C.P.R. (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) is started from the moment the person is found.

The availability of at least 7 Paramedics means that the patient has a better chance of survival. e.g. when you get a large male upstairs you need to do C.P.R. , Defibrillate, run back downstairs for a carrying sheet and blankets, struggle to get this person downstairs and out on to the trolley which you have brought in near the door and carry your resuscitation bag, suction equipment and defibrillator downstairs as well as the patient all the while not stopping C.P.R. for more than 30 secs and without injuring yourself in the process.

Strictly speaking from the time you make a decision to move to hospital one person is doing ventilation's and chest compression with suction possibly and the other getting and moving equipment so the extra paramedics give a greater chance of a positive outcome for the patient.

Now consider 7 trained people helping all doing a part of the whole job. This means that 3 people can stay with the patient while the rest fetch equipment and even save time by turning the ambulance in the direction of the hospital! With the introduction of intubation, LMAs, Defibs, IV's etc it takes time to set up the equipment so CPR can be done in tandem to setting this up with more rescuers.

Report of a House Fire With Persons Trapped Inside

1. Address of fire along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when travelling from a particular direction etc. (do you have your house number displayed where it can be see from the road on a dark night?)

2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.

3. Is everyone safe and away from the fire? If not the location and number of the persons trapped must be ascertained as more fire appliances / resources may need to be sent.

4. The calltaker will give advice to the caller if they are trapped to close doors, block smoke entry, and to get near a window to breathe and to be able to alert fire crews as to their location. It may also transpire that they can drop down a set of keys as some house owners / apartment dwellers keep their front doors locked. Having a key will save us time in gaining entry. In addition many of the new development have access code for main gates which slow down responses if not given to the calltaker.

In the suburbs 2 fire appliances, 1 ambulance, l district officer and the emergency tender (Heavy Rescue) will be initially dispatched. However more can be sent on initially if the information warrants it e.g. several people trapped require more ambulances and more fire engines. All District Officer cars and Emergency Tenders carry thermal imaging cameras which may aid finding people in smoke logged buildings.

In the city centre the 30M (100 foot) turntable ladder is sent to all such calls.

In short each call type has a predetermined attendance (P.D.A.) that is the computer will offer the appropriate number of resources based on the incident type entered e.g. skip on fire (1 pump) or hospital on fire (2 pumps, turntable ladder, rescue tender, ambulances, district officer) however this may be upgraded or downgraded depending on the information received.

Call Statistics

The Department of the Environment and Local Government publishes figures every year with a list of statistics for fire calls in Ireland. www.environ.ie

It should be noted that that fire appliances in Dublin respond to a large number of calls with our ambulance in the likes of Road traffics accidents, cardiac arrests, industrial accidents etc. These however are not listed as a part of the incidents in fire calls as they are not logged as such on the system being tagged instead as an ambulance case. So where the fire appliance in Tallaght may turn out to 3 fires and 4 ambulance assists it will be recorded as only having done 3 calls!

While reading such statistics several things should be borne in mind:

An incident or call is the actual reason or location to which the response is sent. One incident can have one ambulance or 10 ambulances and 20 fire engines and be recorded as only one incident.

Fire appliances which do not reach the scene and go in attendance are not registered as having moved at all even though they were actually responding to a call and unavailable for another one!

The number of "phonecalls" will be far greater then the number of incidents as each incident will have at least one phonecall but some many have two or dozens such as obvious fires or road traffic collisions.