FiReControl

FiReControl was a project, initiated in the United Kingdom in March 2004, to reduce the number of control rooms used to handle emergency calls for fire services and authorities. Presently there are 46 control rooms in England that handle calls from the local public for emergency assistance via the 999 system. A new radio network – FireLink – is being developed and built that will be compatible with FiReControl.

The original plan was for 46 current control rooms to be combined into nine regional control centres (RCC), but this plan was thrown into doubt in May 2010 when the government announced that fire services would not be forced to reorganise. The plan was formally scrapped in December 2010.

Each fire and rescue service in England is responsible for accepting and processing emergency fire calls in its own local authority area and, with agreement, emergency calls from other fire and rescue service areas. These are answered by dedicated fire control staff who use computer-aided mobilising systems to locate the nearest available, appropriate resources and mobilise them to the incident. The control staff maintain contact with the fire crews, in most cases by voice radio, whilst on their way and during the incident to provide current information and respond to critical requests.

Fire and rescue services can support each other with additional resources. Although the control rooms rely on different technologies and operational procedures and are not physically networked, they support each other by taking calls and giving advice to callers from outside their area. Then the information is passed to the relevant fire service via telephone, fax or radio, whichever is quickest. There are about 1500 control staff employed in England, with 350 on duty at any one time under the current county system. All staff are able to take emergency calls for their neighbours during busy periods such as severe flooding or multiple grass fires during droughts.

The regional control rooms were expected to improve on the current arrangements by:

However much of the technology is said to be becoming obsolete before it has even been installed due to progress in technology and delays to the project. Some fire services already have some of the proposed equipment some three years before the final RCC goes live.

In support of the new control rooms an additional government project called FireLink is delivering a new digital radio system called "Airwave".

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