Hampshire And Isle Of Wight Fire Service Celebrating 'Heroes In Headsets'

This international Control Room Week (21- 27 October) sees the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Service celebrating its heroes in headsets.

The Fire Control team deals with around one hundred 999 calls a day, and International Control Room Week gives a chance to celebrate the extraordinary achievements and professionalism of our Control Firefighters.

The Control Room is start of the frontline and plays a vital role in dealing with incidents – determining the scale of response and mobilising the most appropriate vehicles/equipment to tackle fires, animal rescues, chemical spills, road traffic collisions and more.

Although it is imperative that the teams deal with emergency calls as quickly as possible, it is of equal importance to ask the right questions and gain the most information possible from callers.

This is so they can deploy the right resources and liaise with partners such as police, ambulance, coastguard, utilities where needed.

Often, they co-ordinate all this while remaining on the phone, to sometimes traumatised people, as a voice of reassurance until firefighters arrive.

Phil Barrett, Assistant Director Operational Support, said:

“Control is the heart of the Service, making sure our crews and resources are deployed to the right place at the right time and providing vital communication and support throughout incidents.

“We are so grateful for the hard work, commitment and dedication of every one of our personnel in the control room – the volume of calls they resolve every day is testament to the professionalism, resilience, flexibility and efficiency of the team.”