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Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:11:42 -0500
From:         AIRBORNE THE FIREMAN IS BACK <CDUNBAR@UNTVAX.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: mutual/automatic aid pacts

Peter and whomever else is interested,

Whoa!  Long reply coming....   =)

Before I directly answer your questions reguarding mutual aid, etc..., I must
describe to you how the fire and ambulance departments are organized in this
area.  I may have covered some of this information before in other posts,
but I think the background information would be helpful to you and others:

About 7 years ago in Northwest Harris County, Houston, Texas, all of the FD's
were volunteer and usually claimed conflicting areas.  Some departments would
claim part of a neighboring department's claimed territory.  SOmetimes bad
arguments would break out or a few words passed here and there, but nothing
really severe.  The point is that mutual aid, at this time, virtually did not
exist.  If a major incident occured, response times for "mutual aid" departments
   would be very great because one department's dispatchers had to phone another
department's dispatchers if one dospatcher's son / daughter wasn't talking to
them =).

About 6 years ago, the residents of the North and Northwest Harris County area
(also known as unincorperated Harris County, Northwest) outside of the city
limits voted to construct fire protection districts.  These districts, called
Rural Fire Protection Dii

stricts), did several things:

        1.  They created defined and agreed apon borders for neighboring FD's

        2.  Each district was created for each existing department so that
            the district's territory covered the same territory as the FD
            inside it (these are seperate entities, but they work together)

        3.  A central dispatching center was later developed for most of
            this area.  Duties included FD, EMS, and ambulanse transports

        4.  Standard protocols for Mutual Aid were outlined and approved by
            all area departments

        5.  AND, fire departments were able to collect money from these
            districts by these means:

                a. A certain percentage of tax revenues from all businesses
                   within a department's district

                b. A certain percentage of water taxes from all residences and
                   apartment complexes (and, I think, businesses)

                c. And, if memory serves, a certain percentage of property taxes
(As I look back on the above stuff, I realize that I have combined the creation
of the districts with what went on in conjuntion to the forming of these
districts; so any current residents and FFs of this area, forgive me =)

One more bit of background information, our central dispatcher (the FM 1960
Comm Center) was beefed up in computer equipment recently, and more radio
communications protocols have been established, as well as new dispatching
and mutual aid protocals since I was a FF there.  If anyone from this area
knows anything different form the information I am giving, please tell me =)

Okay.........  to the meat of the questions:

This 1960 Comm Center has computer assisted dispatch (which works VERY WELL!)
with mutual aid responses programmed in.  Now, the fire departments' boundaries
are set in law, so there are generally not "territorial" disputes.  Generally,
the closest AVAILABLE engine company, rescue company, ladder company, tanker,
EMS, etc. to the incident, no matter where the incident is.  Sometimes,
however, if our chief doesn't like the way a particular way OUR stations are
being dispatched to mutual aid calls (because of equipment dispatched not
compatible to requirements at a MA scene), he / she can talk to a dispatcher
about getting the response area changed in the department for better
distribution of the proper equipment to MA scenes.  MA dispatching, the way
things are run here, is almost like dispatching for one large department.

Also, moat of our newer engines in these departments have 64 channel high/
low band radios with digital scan and programmable priority freqs.  We can
communicate on designated frequencies much easier and save the main
frequencies for other (future) incidents.  We have a Mutual Aid frequency,
a fireground command frequency, our primary, our secondary, and all of the
other department's frequencies programmed in.  The point of this segment is
that in order to limit confusion in responding mutual aid, a frequency must
be designated (best by protocals or agreements) specifically for all
mutual aid calls so that the primary channels are cleared for other traffic.
One further note that the dispatcher must be able to talk to responding units
on this designated mutual-aid channel.

As far as how easy was it to set this MA system up?  It took a lot of
compromising, belly aching, exchanges of words, confusion (at first), and
head aches.  We got most (if not all) of the bugs worked out of the system.
I haven't been with this department within the last 2 years, but I sure
learned a lot when I was there.

I hope this information proves to be beneficial.

*******************************************************************************
Christophe Dunbar               Bitnet: CDUNBAR@UNTVAX
University of North Texas       Internet: CDUNBAR@VAXB.ACS.UNT.EDU
Third year                      Internet: CDUNBAR@SOL.ACS.UNT.EDU
Computer Science major          Internet: CDUNBAR@PONDER.CSCI.UNT.EDU
Cypress Creek Volunteer Fire Department
Argyle Volunteer Fire Department
Level I Firefighter Certification in the State of Texas......
as we say down here.......
                                        Texas, the Republic of !!!!!!  =)

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Newsgroups: misc.emerg-services