Mobilising & Communications centre

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Overview

The Fire Services act states that each Fire and Rescue Service must provide effective arrangements for dealing with calls for the assistance of the Fire Brigade in cases of emergency and for summoning members of the brigade.

MACC provides this service for the Authority, working to ensure “Best Value” principles are adhered to at all times to ensure that a high quality and cost effective service is delivered to the community.

The department is committed in developing and improving policies and procedures both within the department and at operational incidents.

MACC is also committed in providing assistance to the community

By taking calls from members of the public requesting general safety advice, home fire safety checks, the fitting of smoke detectors, checking electric blankets and replacing old style chip pans – this information being passed onto and used by the Community Fire Safety Department.

MACC – mobilising operations

MACC is manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by 4 watches consisting of 12 staff per watch. Along with managerial, day staff and job sharers, the total establishment is 57 personnel.

The Control Room (MACC) deals with all emergency 999 call handling and subsequent mobilising of the appropriate appliances, equipment and personnel throughout the West Yorkshire area. They maintain continuous communication links with appliances and crews providing dynamic support and information as required to assist in delivering a conclusion to all emergency incidents.

Staff constantly monitor, maintain and update the availability of resources, maintaining emergency cover at all times throughout the county.

All personnel are highly trained to deliver Fire Survival Guidance to persons trapped in a building by fire – giving information and assistance on how to remain safe until assistance arrives to rescue them.

MACC are also responsible for, and have the capability to take, and mobilise to all “999” calls received for South Yorkshire if their control is incapable of taking calls for any reason.

Systems

The systems department is responsible for monitoring and managing the “Fire Information Manager” (FIM) mobilising computer system used in MACC.

They are responsible for rectifying all system faults, implementing system upgrades and changes, also amending and updating computerised action plans, used to assist in dealing with incidents, which are stored on the system.

Training Department

The training department within MACC designs, develops and produces training materials, learning aids and delivers training programs to MACC staff.

The department provides guidance and support to NVQ and assessor award candidates, assesses trainee and probationer performance and also develops and audits maintenance of competence records.

Database

The Database department continually maintains the computer database for the FIM mobilising computer used by WYFRS.

The department keeps street and premise records up to date, also updating the emergency fallback system should the need arise for MACC staff to evacuate the control building.

They also provide statistics and produce street schedule printouts to assist in providing the best fire cover for the community within West Yorkshire.

Statistics

MACC staff in 2005/6 took 59.72 seconds on average to deal with each emergency call, this involves obtaining all address details and type of incident from the caller, selecting the required appliances and sending the mobilising instructions to the appropriate fire stations.

In 2006 MACC staff took a total of 94591 “999” calls of which there were:

6242 primary fires, including 2968 vehicle fires and 70 chip pan fires. Of these fires 1909 were as a result of Arson
13126 small fires i.e. fires in the open, rubbish fires etc. 1395 of these were bonfires.
3825 special service calls, including 663 lift rescue incidents, 655 road traffic collisions of which 75 incidents were involving persons trapped, a total of 105 persons were rescued.
18154 false alarm calls with good intent i.e. fire alarms – and 1642 malicious calls made to the fire service.

Regional Control

FireControl is a DCLG project to replace the current 46 locally operated fire control rooms with 9 Regional Control Centres (RCCs).

These 9 Centres will provide resilience – constituting part of the Countries Critical National Infrastructure – and also provide fallback and networking support to allow fallback support should an RCC fail. They will also provide backup for an individual RCC during periods of spate conditions in one or more regions, allowing excess calls to be routed to, and processed at another RCC.

FireLink is a DCLG project to provide a nationwide area radio system in England, Scotland and Wales. The key features of the FireLink project are:

Transparent national roaming, facilitating cross- border operations.

Enhanced interoperability within the FRS and other emergency services.

Multiple voice and data channels.

Useful links:

FireControl website: - https://www.firecontrol.communities.gov.uk/

FireLink website: - http://www.firelink.org.uk/cms.cgi/site/

HM Government Link to fire and rescue services: - Fire gateway

Policies and procedures