Cumbria Fire : Services we Provide : Operations : Control

All Emergency 999 call handling and mobilising for Cumbria Fire & Rescue is based at the Fire & Rescue Service Control at Cockermouth. The control centre is primarily responsible for receiving all emergency 999 calls for the whole of the county of Cumbria.

Last year Cumbria Control received 13258 calls to which 7172 were mobilised to.

The control room is permanently staffed, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Seventeen highly trained personnel work a 12 hour shift pattern on a watch based system.

Emergency calls can be received in a variety of ways: 999 (landline), mobile telephone, Alarm receiving centres, Automatic Fire Alarms, Police, Ambulance, Exchange Telephone. Once the control operator has extracted the relevant and necessary information from the caller, the appropriate resources are deployed within seconds via the computerised mobilising system. The system identifies the nearest available appliance and allows the control operator to dispatch resources quickly and efficiently. Mobilising is also assisted by a computerised mapping system which enables both the control operator and operational crews to locate the incident. Sometimes controllers have to deal with distressed callers and in some cases there is a requirement for the control operator to give survival guidance to those who may be trapped by fire or other emergency situations.

Throughout the incident control will maintain communication links and liaise closely with operational staff, providing support and processing any requests. All details are documented on 'an incident log'.

Control staff will co-ordinate appliances, personnel and equipment that are required at a variety of incidents, these include:

All fires (property, cars, rubbish, grass etc)

To recognise the professionalism of Cumbria Fire & Rescue Service Control, personnel have been responsible for dealing successfully with such incidents as the Carlisle and rest of County floods - January 2005 and also The West Coast Line Train Derailment at Greyrigg, near Kendal - February 2007, both with minimum crewing levels. The control room received 11,000 calls at the height of operations during the floods and both incidents were described by staff as being very demanding but also highly rewarding. These are only 2 of the many incidents that are consistently dealt with professionally be Cumbria Fire & Rescue service control personnel.

When not dealing with operational incidents, Control room staff also carry out routine administrative tasks, including fire reports, appliance/officer availability, statistics, defects, accidents, press, general enquires and training.