Establish alternative fire control room arrangements

In the event of needing to evacuate the main fire control room, fire and rescue services should have in place the means to continue receiving emergency calls and mobilising resources. This can be achieved by:

• Having secondary control facilities from where the fire control room function can be quickly re-established
• By entering into a contractual agreement with another organisation to temporarily take over this activity

Secondary control facilities

Mobilising systems offer different secondary control provisions, ranging from a portable laptop computer to a mobilising system and communications interface within a duplicate control on the same site as the main fire control room, or at a remote location.

Secondary control facilities should be capable of:

• Receiving emergency and other incoming and outgoing calls
• Mobilising resources
• Operating the main scheme radio

The secondary control facilities should be at a location that would not be affected by any disruption to the services provided at the main fire control room. This may require establishing the secondary control facilities with emergency telephone lines from a different exchange to those of the main fire control room.

Contractual agreements

If the functions of the fire control room are to be delivered by another organisation, entering into a formal contract should help to ensure any standards can be met. The contract might benefit from including agreed service level arrangements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).