Orange County FD Questions

[gcopter1]

I'm a long time scanner listener but not a fire buff.

I've only recently started listening to the FD due to my favorite service being encrypted.

When I'm listening to Orange County FD, I hear calls dispatched as; "Fire Watch" "Fire Services Incident" and "Potentially Violent Situation".

What do they mean?

When I hear the "Fire Watch" call, I imagine someone is being dispatched to "watch" an area prone to fire? Don't sound like an efficient way to dispatch expensive resources. Then again, this is why I ask...

When I hear "Fire Services Incident", don't have the slightest idea what this could possibly mean.

"Potentially Violent Situation", well, isn't that what the police is for? And, if FD is still needed, why not just let FD know, why are they needed in a potentially violent situation?

Thanks.

 

[tampabaynews]

A fire watch is fairly universal. It’s done when a fire alarm or suppression system is offline. Someone needs to maintain a constant dedicated patrol as long as the building is occupied. Sometimes FD’s provide this service or sometimes they allow the owner to provide their own fire watch. Sometimes after a working fire, a crew remain at the scene for some time to make sure it doesn’t rekindle.

There are lots of potentially violent situations that the FD will respond to with PD. Shootings, assaults, suicide attempts, people on drugs, etc. Advising the FD unit of the situation is for situational awareness purposes. It lets them know they should stage at a distance until PD has secured the scene.

Not quite sure what a fire service incident is. I’ve heard similar terms as a catch all category to some non-medical related calls requiring a single engine non-emergency response.

 

[gcopter1]

Very informative, thanks!

 

[MTS2000des]

I spent a week in Orlando attending our CAD vendors' conference at Disney and listened to OCFD while I was there. Their use of the US Digital FSA product interested me as I was looking to implement the same text to speech alerting at my agency.

They seem to have a small number of different major nature codes/classifications as described by gcopter1. I was particularly intrigued by the volume of calls they got while I was there. They seem to have a fire TAC assignment based on geographic locations, someone correct me if this is wrong with a dispatcher assigned to the TAC after initial dispatch.

 

[joekodak]

Over here in Volusia Co they have been doing "controlled burns" for a couple weeks. Risky with the extremely dry conditions here. I've heard similar dispatch for Fire Watch and I think they may do that to have a crew close just in case the fire starts go get out of control. That way they don't have to wait 10-20 minutes to get a water wagon on site and in operation.

 

[TEH]

Here's more info on the types of calls you mentioned:

* FIREWATCH is an alarm in which a single engine is dispatched to the scene of a previous working fire that was extinguished, and units on the original alarm have left the scene. Often, brush fires and structure fires will rekindle hours later. I noticed rekindle fires that happened several times during my news career in Central Florida. OCFR typically dispatches an engine to return to the scene about 4 hours after units cleared the scene of the original call. For large fires, a FIREWATCH call may occur every 4 hours.

* FIRE SERVICES INCIDENT is not a type of call that I have heard. I suspect it may be to check a hazard, such as an electrical problem, water leak, or similar. It would not be a working fire, and I suspect it would be a non-emergency response.

* PVS or POTENTIALLY VIOLENT SITUATION is a call in which a person has been assaulted, or someone on scene may have threatening behavior, such as a suicidal person making threats to harm himself or others, a person under the influence or with mental issues who is acting irrationally. The purpose of this classification is to alert all responding personnel that there is a risk of violence. OCFR units will stage (stop away from the scene), and wait for law enforcement to arrive and secure any people who might be violent, and ensure that the scene is safe before OCFR units will go to the scene of the patient.

While the category names of calls vary from agency to agency, the procedures described above are normally followed by all fire rescue agencies.
For more information on OCFR,

Fire Rescue

 

[BLSBoy]

"Fire Service Incident" is a catch all...or it is the stopping of the call taking, and dispatch of a unit just to stop the clock.

I spent a week in Orlando attending our CAD vendors' conference at Disney and listened to OCFD while I was there. Their use of the US Digital FSA product interested me as I was looking to implement the same text to speech alerting at my agency.

They seem to have a small number of different major nature codes/classifications as described by gcopter1. I was particularly intrigued by the volume of calls they got while I was there. They seem to have a fire TAC assignment based on geographic locations, someone correct me if this is wrong with a dispatcher assigned to the TAC after initial dispatch.

You are correct. 1 is Dispatch, 2 is usually unit to unit chatter, 3 East, 4 East Major Incident, 5 South, 6 South MI, 7 West/North, 8 MI. 11 is Contracted cities/AMR. The rest are rarely used, and I haven't operated on them.

ISO requires strict call handling times to achieve ISO Class 1, which OCFRD is. So, if they know there is a fire, but are working on type, (structure or residential), they will drop the first due suppression on a FSI, then fill the comp shortly.

 

[gcopter1]

"Fire Service Incident" is a catch all...or it is the stopping of the call taking, and dispatch of a unit just to stop the clock.

You are correct. 1 is Dispatch, 2 is usually unit to unit chatter, 3 East, 4 East Major Incident, 5 South, 6 South MI, 7 West/North, 8 MI. 11 is Contracted cities/AMR. The rest are rarely used, and I haven't operated on them.

ISO requires strict call handling times to achieve ISO Class 1, which OCFRD is. So, if they know there is a fire, but are working on type, (structure or residential), they will drop the first due suppression on a FSI, then fill the comp shortly.

I find that very interesting, stopping the clock...

as in, we better get some response started to minimize the response time?

Just how much this affects the outcome of the response?

I would imagine that the call taker highest priority is to ascertain exactly what type of call is and what is needed to dispatch before committing expensive assets on a call that could very well turn out not to be as serious at first glance.

 

[BLSBoy]

I find that very interesting, stopping the clock...

as in, we better get some response started to minimize the response time?

Just how much this affects the outcome of the response?

I would imagine that the call taker highest priority is to ascertain exactly what type of call is and what is needed to dispatch before committing expensive assets on a call that could very well turn out not to be as serious at first glance.

Instead of a 74 second call handle time (pickup to dispatch), you get a 45 second one. First unit out the door, on the road. It depends on what the caller says. If you say the magic words (my house is on fire), they'll bang out a residential comp off the bat. Others might need questioning to determine is this fire out, just starting, type of occupancy, etc.
You'd much rather have a full comp coming for nothing, than have an engine roll up on a working fire by themselves.

 

[WX4JCW]

When Chief Neumann took over and they went to locution they simplified the dispatching system, it is weird since I dispatched there, a lot has changed but the other posts nailed it , there will probably be more changes with the new Communications Chief (She is awesome BTW worked with her when I was there)

Fire 2 is a Catch all Channel, the Fire inspectors also use it to communicate to dispatch, we would monitor it with a portable going to pick up food for the rest of the dispatchers so they could call us back if it got busy

GCopter pretty much nailed it, Fire Service Incident is pretty much a catch all for everything from a cat in a tree to an illegal burn

so to reiterate the Channels
Fire 1 - Dispatch - Operator always Assigned
Fire 2 is the Comm Center, Usually a Supervisor Monitors or the Medcom Operator
Fire 3 is EastSide EMS/Small Responses - Always Has an Operator assigned
Fire 4 is East Side Major Incidents requiring a command structure, I.e. Entrapments, Major Fires, Etc, No Operator is assigned unless active
Fire 5 is Southwest (Disney to Taft up to the CIty) Small Response staffing same as Fire 3
Fire 6 is the Southwest Major Incident Tac staffing as fire 4
Fire 7 is the Northwest Small Response channel same as 3 and 5
Fire 8 is the same as 4 and 6 for the Northwest
Fire 9 and 10 are rarely used
FIre 11 is for any response where AMR (Former Rural Metro Ambulances) Run Ocoee, Winter Garden, Maitland, Eatonville, I suspect this was a highly political move to isolate AMR/RMA from the rest of the system, there is a LOT of bad blood there
Fire 14 is where units go to chat with each other

and if you are interested in shifts there are 4 A,B,C,D they work 12 hours 2 Days on from 0630-1830 2 days off then 2 nights on 1830-0630 then 2 nights off then repeat

hope this helps on top of the other awesome information in this post