Control room

Dealing with emergency calls

A centralised system for the receipt of emergency calls operates from the North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue control room in Northallerton.

This means that all 999 calls for the fire service, made from anywhere in North Yorkshire and the City of York, will be connected to the one control room, not to local fire stations.

The control room was opened in 1997 and houses the Firecat computer assisted mobilising system, together with an elaborate communications network which enables the service to deal quickly and efficiently with all emergency calls. It is staffed 24/7 by trained personnel.

Radio is used to give county-wide coverage through a network of transmitters and fixed radios in fire appliances. Additionally, hand-held radios, mobile telephones or pagers are used to communicate with officers.

Retained, or “On Call” Firefighters carry alerters, which are activated when the appliance from the station at which they are based, is mobilised.

As well as dealing with emergency calls, the Control Watch Manager has four monitors to keep a check on, ensuring availability of fire engines and special appliances, and keeping overall control of the whole brigade.

A mobile Incident Command Unit, equipped with communications facilities, is crewed jointly by Northallerton control room personnel and attends large or protracted incidents.