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FiReControl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FiReControl is a UK based project to reduce the number of regional control centres or RCCs used to handle emergency calls for fire brigades and authorities. Presently there are 46 control rooms in England that handle calls from the public for emergency assistance via the 999 system.
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The FiReControl project is establishing nine regional control rooms, or RCCs (regional control centres) that are purpose built that would enable fire authorities to deal with a range of incidents, and resilience - that is to control and handle any civil emergency including response to terrorist attacks and environmental disasters. [1]
The project comes under the UK government department known as the Department for Communities and Local Government, which until May 2006 was known as the ODPM or Office of Deputy Prime Minister. The DCLG has produced a map (in pdf format) of the current and proposed new control centres: [1]
Fire and rescue services have traditionally been responsible for answering their own emergency calls - that is, those that are passed to the brigade control room from the BT operator who initially speaks to the caller, who has usually dialled 999 from the landline, or cellular telephone system.
The control rooms have direct links with the other emergency services. Due to its size, the London Fire Brigade had three control rooms throughout the 1960s 70s and 80s, located at Stratford in east London, Croydon in south London and Wembley in north west London, but this was rationalised with one control room based in central London in the early 1990s.[2]; a new centre was opened in London's Docklands in 2004.
The FiReControl project came about as a result of the Independent Review of the Fire Service which was published by Professor Sir George Bain in September 2002 - it is known informally as the Bain report and led to a national fire strike over 2002 and 2003.
The FiReControl website says:
"In 1999, the Government commissioned Mott MacDonald to carry out a review of fire control rooms, resulting in a report which was published in April 2000. This was followed, in 2002, by the Bain Report and in 2003 by the White Paper 'Our Fire and Rescue Service' and an updated version of Mott MacDonald's Report.
"The outcome of this extensive review process was the recommendation that the Fire and Rescue Service move to a network of regional control rooms." [3]
Building work had begun by 2006 on regional control centres across England, the complete timetable and roll-out of regional control centres - RCCs - has been approved by the former Fire Service Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick.[4]. By January 2007, several RCCs were in various stages of completion, the implementation of FiReControl is expected to be completed by 2009.
- Pictures of RCC building work at various centres, from the DCLG (See: project overview, useful documents pdf)
The FiReControl's website, anticipates that the news regional control centres will be come into service in two waves, in the following order:
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In March 2007, the Fire Service Minister Angela Smith announced that EADS Defence and Security Systems had been awarded a £200m contract (over eight years) to supply the IT infrastructure for the control rooms allowing them to be linked.[5] The press release stated that the contract will include the provision of:
- Caller location so the location of a member of the public calling by telephone for help (whether mobile or landline) will be identified automatically saving time
- Satellite positioning to tell control operators which fire appliances, with the correct equipment on board, have the shortest travel time to an incident
- Computer-aided systems to enable staff to locate and directly mobilise the nearest available appropriate resources automatically, using data-transmission, not voice messages
- In cab displays so firefighters mobilised to an incident will have constantly updated information
- ^ http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1123962
- ^ http://www.leslp.gov.uk/comms.htm#LFB
- ^ http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1123962
- ^ https://www.firecontrol.odpm.gov.uk/ (updates>RCC Rollout order)
- ^ Dept for Communities and Local Government: Award of state of the art IT contract to improve fire service delivery announced 07 Mar 07, (accessed 09 Mar 07)