page_title: New York City Fire Department
section_title: Communications
hierarchical_section_title: New York City Fire Department / Communications
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking northwest at en:wiki/FDNY#Bureau_of_Communications telegraph station at Woodhaven Blvd and Park Lane South on a sunny spring afternoon.
context_page_description: The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York, is a department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection, technical rescue services, primary response to biological, chemical, and radioactive hazards, and emergency medical services responses to the five boroughs of New York City.
  The New York City Fire Department is the largest municipal fire department in the United States and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. The FDNY employs approximately 10,951 uniformed firefighters, 4,301 uniformed EMTs, paramedics, and 2,096 civilian employees. Its regulations are compiled in title 3 of the New York City Rules. The FDNY's motto is New York's Bravest for fire and New York's Best for EMS. The FDNY serves more than 8.5 million residents within a 302 square mile area.
  The FDNY headquarters is located at 9 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, and the FDNY Fire Academy is located on Randalls Island. The International Association of Firefighters locals are 94 & 854.
context_section_description: As of 2018 there are two Bureau of Fire Communications Dispatch Offices: Public Safety Answering Center 1 (PSAC 1), 11 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn and Public Safety Answering Center 2 (PSAC 2), 350 Marconi St, Bronx. PSAC 1 houses Brooklyn, and Staten Island.  PSAC 2 houses the Bronx, Manhattan/Citywide, and Queens.
  An initial call to an FDNY Communications Dispatch Office is taken by the Alarm Receipt Dispatcher (ARD) who speaks with the caller in order to determine the nature of the emergency. The ARD enters the information by keyboard into the Starfire computer system, which gives a recommended fire department resource response based on the information provided. This information is automatically sent to the Decision Dispatcher (DD) and the "Tour Supervising Dispatcher" (TSD).
  When the Decision Dispatcher has made a decision as to what units will actually be assigned to the incident, unless the supervisor intervenes, he or she pushes the "release" button and the alarm is routed to the assigned companies, both in their respective firehouses and to the individual mobile data terminals (MDT) of each company's apparatus when it is in the field, depending on where the Starfire computer shows them to be situated. If a company/unit in a firehouse does not acknowledge the run within 30 seconds, the computer will notify the Voice Alarm Dispatcher (VAD), who will call that unit via radio in their firehouse by the dedicated intercom system. One minute after the alarm is released, it will appear on the computer screen of the radio dispatcher (Radio), who will announce the alarm and the response two times and ask for acknowledgment from any companies assigned who have not done so by radio, voice alarm or MDT. The radio dispatcher has a special keyboard called the Status Entry Panel (SEP), which is used to update the status of units based on information received by radio.
  The entire process from initial notification until a unit is dispatched can take up to two (2) minutes, depending on the complexity of the call, the information provided by the caller(s) and the degree of other alarm activity in the office. If a dispatch office is so busy that its incoming telephone alarm lines are all busy or not answered within 30 seconds, the call is automatically transferred to another borough dispatch office. If an Emergency Reporting System (ERS) street fire alarm box is not answered within 60 seconds, usually because all of the alarm receipt consoles are in use, the computer automatically dispatches an engine company to the location of the physical street fire alarm box.
  Any communications dispatch office in the city can take a fire or emergency call by telephone for any borough and upon completion of information taking, the incident will automatically be routed by the Starfire computer to the Decision Dispatcher (DD) for the borough in which the incident is reported.
  Fire Dispatch has a minimum staffing (Staffing Level 1) which consist of 1 Chief Dispatcher who supervises 5 Tour Supervising Dispatchers (1 in each Borough). The TSDs supervise's between 4 and 8 Dispatchers depending on Borough and Time/Day. The minimum staffing may be increased based on many variables such as an extraordinary increase in volume of incidents, a catastrophic event, in preparation of a storm and during large events.
caption: The former FDNY Queens Communications Dispatch Office in Woodhaven, Queens
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