SOCC/MFS Commcen merger?

[Pipster]

And if the person with the station mobile is unavailable / out of reception / misses the page, what happens then?  How do the people at the station know if the page has been acknowledged? What if the duty officer (who acknowledges the page) is 15 minutes from the station and arrives to find no one else has responded? In an urban brigade, the brigade should have defaulted 10 minutes ago...

To answer to this is simple the duty officer is the Capt/Lt if they are out of area one of the other Lt's has the duty phone so therefore has a radio on them so knows whats going on at the station. Has been working at our station for years as we rarely get responded by CFS SOC. We use to make it first to the station but some of the guys would forget with being more interested in getting the appliance out the door, but what ever works for the individual brigade is fine.

Well in my area that pretty much means the Captain & 4 Lts will be out of range of the mobile, often out of range of the portable GRN (which the Captain currently hangs on to,) and depending on where you happen to be at the time the pager comes through, you may well miss that too....half the time, the Lt's only know there is a call out when the siren goes off, or a second page goes out, saying the appliance has responded to a call... (Recpetion issues have been discussed at length on this, and other forums...

So, back to first person who gets to the station acknowledges the page....it works for my brigade..... it may not work for everyone, and as has been said...go with what works for you!

Pip

[TillerMan]

The issue in some brigades will be getting someone to the station in 4 mins to acknowledge the page due to travelling time, this should be changed to 6 mins but i understand that the system is set up for 4 mins so i reckon it will change to 6 mins when things settle down a bit and someone has time to change the programs in the BOMS system.

[pumprescue]

Exactly, give it time to settle in and make suggestions, no point flying off the handle now, we will let it settle in, but I am sure there will be some old stick in the muds that will cry from day 1.

[Blue]

And July 1 draws ever near....

Four minutes sounds like a luxury to me, takes me nine 

I disagree with whoever said essentially that 'we're volunteers therefore we take direction and like it or lump it'. That's crap and CFS is well aware of the need to look after their vollies. Lets hope with more information flow, there are less misinformation floods.

Speaking of which, I don't know if we had a meeting about all this down here, but I missed the invite.

My only concern of course is that system bugs may mean inefficient resource allocations that slow down response times and close windows of opportunity for saving lives.

Let us all hope for lots of mundane call outs to cats in trees so we can sort out any bugs before rapid response is truly required (no offense to the poor kitty in the tree).

[Alan (Big Al)]

So are we being paged with a standard the MFS page setup with station/appliance codes or are we getting station names included in the page??

Have heard that the latter is happening by someone in our group, but i thought it would be the way MFS have been doing it for years??

[mack]

not sure what is happening initially...
but eventually response paging from MFS will have shortened brigade names at the end...

eg; CRML or MBKR

[Crankster 34]

Well it seems that not everyone is happy about the transition. According to the latest copy of the UFU newsletter if things aren't resolved soon the SES and CFS might be taking back their own CRD in the short term.

Can't see it happening though because they have conveniently left out the fact that 4 ex CFS OCO's will now be joining the comm's team.

http://www.ufusa.asn.au/wordback_5.pdf

[uniden]

well for a start the SES didnt have their own full time comms people anyway. Also the UFU dont always get what they want...

[CFS_Firey]

Can't see it happening though because they have conveniently left out the fact that 4 ex CFS OCO's will now be joining the comm's team.

The way I read it, they want extra people working each shift, not just more people who can do the work.  It doesn't matter how many OCOs come over from CFS if they're still running with the same number of people on shift...

not sure what is happening initially...
but eventually response paging from MFS will have shortened brigade names at the end...

eg; CRML or MBKR

Is this in place of the station/appliance numbers, or in addition to them?

[Pipster]

So are we being paged with a standard the MFS page setup with station/appliance codes or are we getting station names included in the page??

Have heard that the latter is happening by someone in our group, but i thought it would be the way MFS have been doing it for years??

At the meeting in Region 1, we were told that the paging would continue to come of AIRPRO, so messages will look the same as they do now,...although there were some mumbles when if came to whether the whole brigade name is put in, or just the brigade code..... they did say that it wasn't going to be number codes for all brigades (although not sure what the plan is for brigades currently being turn out by MFS)

But it would appear that things are changing on a daily basis, so it might have changed by now!!!

Pip

[mack]

not sure what is happening initially...
but eventually response paging from MFS will have shortened brigade names at the end...

eg; CRML or MBKR

Is this in place of the station/appliance numbers, or in addition to them?

in place of

[pumprescue]

Everything will be done through BOMS, so those that get turned out by SAMFS now will only see the change from numbers to letters, eg 1279 will be MBKR. Airsource will only be used as a back up and notification system, not a turnout system.

For the basic firefighter, if your pager goes, respond to the station.

[TillerMan]

Surely it is better to have a system with a pre determined response than just some group officer on the fire phone saying "Oh yeah 1 brigade will do for that house fire, it probably won't be much" like happens now..... how many times do you see only 1 brigade turn out to a job that 2 or even 3 should go to.

[Hicksflat14]

A lot fewer times than I see 4+ appliances going to a call that only requires one.

That aside if your saying that group officers are specifying negligent responses then you should make a complaint or stop electing them.

I don't see how a computer can make a better decision than a group officer. A group officer more than likely has 15+ years with the CFS, has been involved in thousands of incidents and is able to consider a complex set of variables, whereas the computer does a set of preassigned steps.

I'd choose the decision of a group officer over a computer any day.The Group officer cares about the outcome, The computer does not.

[Firefrog]

Yes that's partially true but I have seen group level decisions be affected by group boundaries and tribal thinking rather than incident outcome.

I'd rather a computer determine an appropriate response sending the closest resource than a GO sending only his/her group to boundary calls.

[Alan (Big Al)]

Case in point yesterday, MVA Old willunga hill road normally Willunga and Alding would go, but the  system sent Mt Compass instead of Aldinga because they are close to that side of willunga than Aldinga.....

[uniden]

thats fine Hicks, but of course in your wisdom you know that firies dont get to vote for group officers, do they??

[Hicksflat14]

Yes I do know that GOs don't get elected directly by FFs. Different brigades run different policies on this. Some put it to the members for a vote on who the brigade will vote for, other leave it to the management committee to nominate. In others just the captain picks. Either way, a FF can usually have his or her influence on the decision. If it was viewed that a group officer wasn't doing the right thing then pressure can be brought to bear through brigade and group politics. There's no such influence with the computer system.

Ps closest brigade doesn't always mean the quickest to get there. Is the computer system aware that brigade A has to go through 3 sets of locked gates and down a fire track to get to the incident, whereas brigade B may have further in distance to come, but has a quicker run with no gates to open and sealed road to travel on? No, it simply looks at distance.

People always think they are closer when their not turned out. Once again I'd rather have a GO take responsibility than blame the outcome on a computer glitch.

[Zippy]

15:13:43   02-07-07   MFS: DAILY INC. NO. 53 - 02/07/07 15:13,RESPOND Vehicle Accident,LITTLE PARA RD,KERSBROOK, MAP 87 Q 10 ,,LOBE, CUDL, CHAIN OF PONDS SIDE OF KERSBROOK CEMETARY,13419 21724*CFSRES:

cant get rid of the numbers can they!!    134-Rescue  217-24...now LOBE, CUDL

[mack]

i think there putting those in there to make it easier for group and brigades trying to work out which set of 5 numbers is them LOL.


if anyone is interested...

1/34/19 = Region One/Lobethal Stn/Rescue

Pretty much the same as the old station numbers, last two digits being appliance type... only differance is the addition of Region number at the start... Shouldnt bother too many people as in theory it wont be around too long..

[Zippy]

actually i believe the station number would be "134"...as Stirling is "90"....not really Region Based...but hey anything is possible.

Common last two digits would be:
8 or 24 - Any non specific appliance
19 - PumpRescue / Rescue
58 - Hazmat

Eg: 1358 Balhannah..13558 Balhannah Hazmat

[calspec]

I thought Hazmat was 28...

Brigades previously paged by MFS haven't seen a change of number ie Morphett Vale is still 8124, Happy Valley 8032, not 18124,18032.  From what I have seen on the pager site, all the new 5 digit numbers we are seeing simply refer to station number + call type.  However, I do see a pattern that all the rural region 1 station numbers seem to start with a 1, region 2 with a two etc   Example Sheaoak Log is 229 (Region 2), Yacka 496 (region 4), Naracoorte 562 (Region 5).  Burnside is still 29, not 129.  All means very little when these numbers cease to be used.

[mack]

dezza34p - in the new temporary system the first number is the region, and that is a fact not a guess... all brigades should have this information.

also hazmat is 28. another one commonly used may be tanker 42. also 8 & 24 are specific appliances being a 4x4 pumper and a 2000L 4wd...

as calspec said, brigades previously paged by MFS Comcen will see no change, until the new system is put in place with alphabetical codes

[mengcfs]

Refer to your station faxes regarding the short Brigade names being on pager messages. Due to teething problems most but not all Brigade are programmed to have their short name come up on the page. This will be rectified along with ALERTS calls not making MFS.

[5271rescue]

its only temp till the software is fixed at mfs comms