If Adelaide Fire are struggling to cope with the workload now, how is the system going to cope when the state has a moderately bad fire day, with multiple brigades repsonding to multiple calls?, let alone dealing with a really bad day which CFS face each year.... (and remembering we are only talking about Call receipt & dispatch here).
I was listening in to a call out recently, where it took 10 minutes for Adelaide Fire to answer any of the 4 appliances going to the same call.... (and each one called several times). Because they hadn't "acknowledged receipt of page" (although they all tried) they were also defaulted to the next MFS brigade..
After 10 minutes of calling the Group officer finally got through, stopped called the MFS crew, as they were not required, and advised that had the radio been answered earlier, then a default wouldn't have been required. The operator stated that he had turned down 124, so he could hear the (country) MFS on the other channel....
As I understand it, there is one person doing the radio for the Country areas, and one for metro....which is going to fail dismally on a busy fire day....I'd suggest no matter how good the operator, they are not going to be able to answer all the country channels in a timely fashion, when things start happening.
To make things worse, is the (often) poor amount of information on pager messages, in regard to address details - and on various forums, some people have bagged anyone who dare criticise the new format (and the associated problems) and have stated to just ask for more info on the radio when you get to the station.
Waiting 10 minutes to get an answer is not going to help the process!
I know the people at Adelaide Fire are trying their best - but the haste at which the process was forced upon the two services, by the Minister, has resulted in several very backwards steps for the call receipt & dispatch for CFS....
Pip
