People > Control

Norfolk Fire Service Brigade Control is staffed 24 hours a day, by 4 Watches.  Each Watch consists of a Watch Manager (Senior Fire Control Operator), a Crew Manager (Leading Fire Control Operator) and 3 Fire Control Operators. 

They work a revolving shift system as follows:

The role of the Fire Control Operator is to accept emergency calls, obtain as much information as possible about the incident in order to identify and despatch the nearest possible appliance to the incident.  Different incident types will require the attendance of different types of appliance, so the operator is required to maintain their knowledge of Brigade policies and procedures in order to perform this correctly. 

For each incident, the operator will also need to inform officers, other emergency agencies, utilities or other services such as the RSPCA, as required by the incident.  They will also mobilise any further appliances and meet requests from the Fireground during a developing incident. 

The mobilising system used by Control is called Vision and is supplied by Fortek Computers in Gosport. 

The system incorporates automatic vehicle location, and calculates how far the nearest appliance is, in minutes, from the incident, which enables the Control staff to mobilise the nearest possible appliance and so provide a better service to the people of Norfolk. 

All the Fire appliances and officers' cars in the fleet are fitted with mobile data terminals.  Mobilising instructions can be transmitted directly to the vehicle required in a data format.  The crews can also access information from their mobile data terminals such as the location of water hydrants, mapping information and information on high risk premises. 

Data messages can be exchanged between the vehicle and Control, which helps eliminate problems caused by radio interference and ensures that messages are received correctly.