This International Control Room Week (October 21-27), Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service is celebrating our Control Room staff and recognising their hard work responding to emergency calls.
Our Control Room has 18 members of staff that are based at the Fire Control Room next to Daventry Fire Station. Headed by Fire Control Station Commander Hayleigh Marks Talabis, there are four for each of the four Watches – Red, Green, Blue and White.
Hayleigh has been in the role for just under year after a decade working in the control room herself.
She said: “In Control, we are the first and last people to deal with an incident. We are the first point of contact with the public, and throughout we log data, liaise with other emergency services and departments, as well as our staff on the ground.”
When receiving a 999 call from a member of the public, one of the members of the Watch on duty will allocate appliances, officers and crews from more than 130 different incident types ranging from house fires to road traffic collisions, animal rescues and flooding. They will also gather information from the person who has called up and offer any lifesaving advice and guidance, all while remaining calm for those who may be in distress.
Hayleigh also spoke of the speed in which initial calls are dealt with, saying: “We will pick up the phone to all kinds of incidents, decide on the incident type, offer survival guidance and mobilise the resources all within between 60 and 90 seconds. Sometimes callers are in situations of distress and high emotion, which can make it difficult to obtain accurate locations and details, but we will always get there.”
As well as dealing with emergency calls, the Control Room team assist departments out of hours, will complete administrative work for the Service and will also occasionally take calls from other parts of the country. The Control Room team in Northamptonshire partners with Warwickshire so that one acts as back-up for the other if they have an overflow of calls.
During the recent period of flooding, Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service was very busy attending calls all over the county. The Control Room took more than 200 weather-related calls during this time and organised 80 call outs to people needing help.
Reflecting on the impact the recent floods had on the control room, Hayleigh said: “Periods of high-volume calls like we had during the flooding push our resources to the limit, but my staff continued to work just as hard as they always have. They worked through breaks and overtime to continue helping people.
“I was incredibly proud of them all. They carried on and took care of people and incidents as they always would, despite being stretched.”
Fire Risk Assessment (worked example for House in Multiple Occupation (HMO)) (PDF 389KB)
