Auto aid hits Shawnee County

[KAA951]

For the first time last night I heard departments in Shawnee County dispatch automatic aid responses on structure fires. The call last night for a reported structure fire in Soldier Township also paged tankers from Rossville and Silver Lake. This morning a call on south Topeka Blvd. brought Shawnee Heights, Mission Township, Auburn and Dover.

Apparently they are working on a north / south division split using the Kansas River.

 

[Buckskinner33]

What exactly is Auto Aid?

 

[sking128]

Auto Aid refers to several disctricts agreeing to automatically send mutual aid companies with out having to make a specific call to that district. i.e. if FD "A" has a fire, then FD's B,C, and D, will automatically send specific equipment to that fire and vice versa. In the past, the Senior officer on scene had to specifically call out for Aid, that slowed down any response from the neighboring district. Auto Aid cuts down the respones time.

Our Department has a similar arrangement with a neighbor FD, when we get called to a fire, the other FD will start an engine company to our fire, and we do the same for them. it works great for Combination FD's where the Vollies all have day jobs and can't respond.

Hope that helps

Steve

 

[Buckskinner33]

is that an added feature that is commo on the newer digital systems?

 

[KAA951]

Auto aid has come to Shawnee County and went....

Apparently dispatch realized they didn't have enought information on what areas had fire hydrants and didn't need to have a bunch of tankers respond. Plus, while some departments are used to running lots of calls- some of the volunteer departments (like Dover) couldn't handle running 4 or more calls out of district each day.

Hopefully it will be back sometime in the future after they work the bugs out.