Columbus FD Batallions

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CVPI4Ever

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Does anyone know how the Columbus FD batallions are divided up? I searched their website and came up empty. Thanks!
 

wa8pyr

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Does anyone know how the Columbus FD batallions are divided up? I searched their website and came up empty. Thanks!

BN1 - Downtown/central
BN2 - North/northeast
BN3 - Campus area
BN4 - South/southeast
BN5 - West
BN6 - East
BN7 - Northwest
BN8 - Future use/training

I have a list somewhere of the specific stations in each battalion but don't have access to it at the moment.
 

jzfireems1

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NEW CFD radio template???

Does anyone have a copy of the new Columbus Fire radio template that they could email to me... Mr Swisher??? Maybe??????
Thanks for the help
J
 

oesjmr

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Has anything changed in regards to CFD Battalion 8? Yesterday there was a car into building call for Madison Township and they were dispatched on Battalion 8. I don't usually listen to the dispatch channel so I don't know if they are routinely dispatched on that fireground now.
 

wa8pyr

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Has anything changed in regards to CFD Battalion 8? Yesterday there was a car into building call for Madison Township and they were dispatched on Battalion 8. I don't usually listen to the dispatch channel so I don't know if they are routinely dispatched on that fireground now.

I think that's a first. Other than training runs, I don't believe they have ever used BN8 for an actual incident; it's not a battalion as such, but is rather intended for high-rise incidents, training (and a possible future Battalion 8).
 

oesjmr

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I think that's a first. Other than training runs, I don't believe they have ever used BN8 for an actual incident; it's not a battalion as such, but is rather intended for high-rise incidents, training (and a possible future Battalion 8).

That's what I thought too! I was surprised when I heard it dispatched on Battalion 8 but thought maybe Madison and Hamilton townships had started being dispatched there instead of Battalion 4/6. It had been about a year since the last time I listened to the dispatch talkgroup, so I wasn't sure if something had changed.
 

ibagli

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I'm not sure how long it's been going on, but I've been hearing runs down there dispatched as being on Battalion 8 fireground for a little while now. It's always one of the smaller assignments that gets put on a battalion talkgroup, like an alarm or a vehicle into a structure. It's only been for runs that had no CFD units at all; anything bigger will get Columbus companies and one of their battalion chiefs with the attendant talkgroup.
 
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tk000

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BN8 FG has occasionally been used for actual incidents, generally when there's a high number of fire runs or during a major indicent. I recall it being used during the severe storms in June '12 and the train derailment in July. I overheard a number of BN8 runs a few days ago, unfortunately work had me a bit busy and I wasn't able to be as attentive as usual to hear the circumstances.
 

gtaman

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Has anything changed in regards to CFD Battalion 8? Yesterday there was a car into building call for Madison Township and they were dispatched on Battalion 8. I don't usually listen to the dispatch channel so I don't know if they are routinely dispatched on that fireground now.

Battalion 8 is mostly training and major incidents. I have noticed though when most channels are tied up they use BN8 also I've seen BN4 incidents ran on BN1
 

WuLabsWuTecH

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BN 8 is used when a second incident is dispatched in the same battalion. It used to be that we'd be assigned to just the next open battalion channel, or if an incident was finishing up, they'd move to the BN# ALT FG or 10 Alpha, but recently instead of tying up another fireground and causing a game of musical chairs to happen, they dispatch onto BN8 FG.

This actually got very confusing for us during the storms of summer 2012. At one point, I remember that both battalion 4 and battalion 1 were on BN4 FG because of the musical chairs and they ended up going to the same assignment in BN2. What should have happened was that the second run in battalion 2's district should have gone to BN8 with battalion 4 being assigned to it, and the third run should have gone out on BN2 ALT FG with battalion 1 being assigned to it, but alas, 10 Fire, and 10 dispatch were down, our MDT's were barely working, dispatching was being done over 9 DELTA at the time, and the FAO generally had their hands full...
 

gtaman

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BN 8 is used when a second incident is dispatched in the same battalion. It used to be that we'd be assigned to just the next open battalion channel, or if an incident was finishing up, they'd move to the BN# ALT FG or 10 Alpha, but recently instead of tying up another fireground and causing a game of musical chairs to happen, they dispatch onto BN8 FG.

This actually got very confusing for us during the storms of summer 2012. At one point, I remember that both battalion 4 and battalion 1 were on BN4 FG because of the musical chairs and they ended up going to the same assignment in BN2. What should have happened was that the second run in battalion 2's district should have gone to BN8 with battalion 4 being assigned to it, and the third run should have gone out on BN2 ALT FG with battalion 1 being assigned to it, but alas, 10 Fire, and 10 dispatch were down, our MDT's were barely working, dispatching was being done over 9 DELTA at the time, and the FAO generally had their hands full...

I remember that 80 percent of the county's computers were down. CPD records that day was a mess.
 

WuLabsWuTecH

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There's actually an interesting story behind that day. I recall it as it was approaching 80 degrees when I walked INTO the station that day for roll-call.

At the time, on Fridays between about 8am and 12noon the FAO would test their backup system. Dispatches would be "done by hand" and the automated system would go down for maintenance. I've only heard this story second or third hand, but here's how it goes:

Because it was so hot, and because manual dispatching only allows for one run to be dispatched at a time, the FAO was getting a lot of 911 calls and they were stacking up waiting to be dispatched. To alleviate this problem, they kept the automated system on (which can dispatch a certain number of runs simultaneously, I think it's 5 or 6). This turned out to be a good idea because we were busy with a lot of elderly and such in the mid to later morning. (We did 23 medic runs that day, but only 17 of those were after the storm hit).

Sometime in the afternoon when it cooled down, I decided to take a nap, and that's when the storm hit. My partner woke me from the couch and told me we had a run, but I didn't hear the page. It was given to us over the landline because the automated system had gone out. Further, the backup system also failed, which they did not discover due to the fact that they had skipped testing that day. Oops!

Long story short, something happened such that they couldn't access 10 FIRE from their consoles and with as many people trying to mark dispatch on 10 DISP, something happened that it went down as well. So we were asked to monitor what was probably still 9 DELTA back then to get our runs on! But yes, the overhead went out of service, 10 FIRE went out of service, and MDT coverage was spotty in our area due to cell towers having been hit. At one point, our MDT dispatched us for a fire that should have gotten to us an hour earlier! When I did pull up the MDT at one of the hospitals, I saw about 350 pending runs. Yikes!

But yes, a lot of people did a lot of talking in a lot of meetings after that day, because it was a clear indication that we were not ready for a major incident...
 

gtaman

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There's actually an interesting story behind that day. I recall it as it was approaching 80 degrees when I walked INTO the station that day for roll-call.

At the time, on Fridays between about 8am and 12noon the FAO would test their backup system. Dispatches would be "done by hand" and the automated system would go down for maintenance. I've only heard this story second or third hand, but here's how it goes:

Because it was so hot, and because manual dispatching only allows for one run to be dispatched at a time, the FAO was getting a lot of 911 calls and they were stacking up waiting to be dispatched. To alleviate this problem, they kept the automated system on (which can dispatch a certain number of runs simultaneously, I think it's 5 or 6). This turned out to be a good idea because we were busy with a lot of elderly and such in the mid to later morning. (We did 23 medic runs that day, but only 17 of those were after the storm hit).

Sometime in the afternoon when it cooled down, I decided to take a nap, and that's when the storm hit. My partner woke me from the couch and told me we had a run, but I didn't hear the page. It was given to us over the landline because the automated system had gone out. Further, the backup system also failed, which they did not discover due to the fact that they had skipped testing that day. Oops!

Long story short, something happened such that they couldn't access 10 FIRE from their consoles and with as many people trying to mark dispatch on 10 DISP, something happened that it went down as well. So we were asked to monitor what was probably still 9 DELTA back then to get our runs on! But yes, the overhead went out of service, 10 FIRE went out of service, and MDT coverage was spotty in our area due to cell towers having been hit. At one point, our MDT dispatched us for a fire that should have gotten to us an hour earlier! When I did pull up the MDT at one of the hospitals, I saw about 350 pending runs. Yikes!

But yes, a lot of people did a lot of talking in a lot of meetings after that day, because it was a clear indication that we were not ready for a major incident...

I remember hearing a run for a fire and dispatch said disregard because it was from two hours earlier. Also they also had problems with double dispatches. Where it gets dispatched again an hour later for the same incident.
 

WuLabsWuTecH

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gtaman, on a good day we have double dispatches occurring... Sometimes it'll dispatch immediately twice in a row (our captain calls this this the 'move your asses faster' dispatch), other times it lags up to a few hours like you described. And then there are those dispatches that dispatch you over, and over, and over, to the point that you've gotten to the scene and it's still repeating...

I'm not really sure what causes it, (nor do I think is anyone else--it's still not fixed) but it's just one of the quirks of the system...
 
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