During periods of multiple calls, differentiating between emergency calls about new incidents and repeat calls about existing incidents allows fire control personnel to identify where a response is required and reduces the likelihood of confusion and inaccurate or duplicated mobilising.
If fire control personnel identify that the call they are managing is a repeat call, contact details of the caller and any additional risk-critical information identified through the call management process should still be recorded on the incident log. Additional information should be shared with operational personnel and other agencies as required.
When multiple emergency calls are being received, fire control personnel should continue to provide appropriate and sufficient guidance to emergency callers.
Technology to help identify repeat calls
Mobilising systems may help fire control personnel to identify and record repeat calls. Mobilising systems may identify repeat calls based on:
- The location of the reported incident compared to the initial incident
- The location of the caller provided by the call handling agent, through enhanced information service for emergency calls (EISEC) or advanced mobile location (AML) data
- The emergency caller’s telephone number
- A combination of the above factors
Once fire control personnel have determined that they are managing a repeat call, most mobilising systems may allow the call to be automatically linked and closed as a repeat of the original incident. This is a way to quickly recall linked incidents to display the caller’s details should the caller need to be recontacted or display any additional risk information should this need to be shared with operational personnel or other agencies. Such processes may help reduce the number of open incident logs on the mobilising system and reduce the likelihood of inaccurate mobilising, while recording all relevant call statistics