For incidents involving people who are trapped in buildings, fire control personnel may benefit from easy access to simple floor plans or building layouts with individual flat numbers. This would help them to associate flat numbers with floor levels and support the accuracy of information about the location of people at risk relayed to operational personnel.
During incidents involving multiple people at risk, communication links need to be established between relevant operational personnel and:
- Buddy or consortium fire controls (when they are also managing calls related to the incident)
- Other fire controls (when emergency call management capacity has been reached and a call redistribution plan, such as Operation Willow Beck has been implemented)
- Other emergency service controls (when they receive calls about the incident due to local buddy arrangements)
To achieve shared situational awareness, information should be shared regularly with the incident commander. It should include information relating to the risks associated with the incident and the impact the incident is having on the capacity of the fire control. This information may be used to support tactical and strategic decisions. For example, multiple calls involving multiple people at risk may influence the incident commander’s decision to change an evacuation strategy.
Buddy, consortium and other fire and emergency controls
When emergency calls for incidents involving multiple survival guidance calls are anticipated or being received by buddy, consortium or other assisting fire and emergency controls, the affected fire control should share information about the incident using methods detailed in Control measure – Share situational awareness with buddy, consortium and other fire and emergency controls during periods of multiple calls and multiple incidents.
The information should be shared in a structured format, such as M/ETHANE, and include any of the following relevant risk-critical information:
- Current advice being given to people at risk, such as:
- Evacuation or ‘stay put’ guidance
- Specific information to support the evacuation advice (for example, to evacuate via the central staircase)
- Survival guidance
- Safety advice
- Instructions on what types of calls the affected fire control wants to receive, such as those:
- From people who are at risk or trapped and receiving survival guidance
- From people who are no longer at risk and no longer require rescuing
- Reporting a change in the caller’s situation or an escalation of the incident
- From or about vulnerable people, such as people with impaired mobility
- About additional, unrelated incidents
- Confirmation of how each type of call should be passed back to the affected fire control, clearly stating the methods to use for higher-priority calls and lower-priority calls
Filtering the types of calls that are passed back to the affected fire control may help to reduce the workload. However, all emergency calls could provide additional information, which should be considered when deciding how to filter calls.
Depending on the capacity of fire control, it may be necessary to agree that only calls concerning people at risk should be passed to the affected fire control immediately, allowing fire control personnel to prioritise these calls.
Assisting fire controls should pass information regarding people at risk directly to the affected fire control, enabling them to record, co-ordinate and communicate the information with operational personnel at the incident ground via the agreed channels of communication.
When a call redistribution plan, such as Operation Willow Beck, has been implemented, the fire control commander should consider that calls from assisting fire controls are likely to contain information about people at risk, where an operational response is required. Configuration of telephone systems to show the name of the assisting fire controls that are calling will help fire control personnel to prioritise which calls to answer.
Incident ground
Shared situational awareness between operational and fire control personnel will help to make effective decisions, especially when incidents involve people, or multiple people, who need to evacuate or require rescue.
This information can be used to prioritise rescues; shared situational awareness is required between fire control and operational personnel to ensure appropriate advice is offered and resources are deployed effectively.
Where it is known, the following information should be recorded and shared with relevant operational personnel at the incident ground:
- The time the call reporting the people at risk was received by fire control personnel
- The advice that was given to the people at risk (for example, to stay put or evacuate)
- Whether people are trapped and receiving survival guidance
- The exact location of all people at risk, including people who are trapped and receiving survival guidance (for example, the flat or property number and floor number, if the incident involves a tall building)
- The number of people at risk, including those who are trapped and require rescuing
- The approximate age group of people at risk and people who are trapped and require rescuing (for example, adult or child)
- Any vulnerabilities or specific requirements of people at risk, such as impaired mobility
- The conditions and hazards present that people who are trapped are experiencing
- The name and gender of people who are trapped and require rescuing, to assist their identification
Operational personnel at the incident ground should inform fire control promptly using the M/ETHANE structure to ensure fire control personnel have accurate shared situational awareness. They should communicate:
- Details of a tactical plan for the prioritisation of rescues
- Whether operational personnel have been deployed to conduct a rescue
- Whether a check has been made on people at risk who have been told to stay put, including:
- The exact location, including the flat and floor number where applicable
- The time the check was made
- Any assistance offered
- The number of people, including their name, gender, approximate age and details of any mobility issues
- Whether a rescue has been completed, including:
- The time contact was made
- The exact location, including the flat and floor number where applicable
- The number of people, including their name, approximate age and gender
- Whether rescued people are at a point of relative safety
- Whether they have identified people who have self-evacuated when ‘stay put’ guidance was given
When operational personnel confirm the points listed above, fire control personnel should update relevant incident logs and search plans accurately.
Operational personnel should promptly share any changes to plans that may affect the guidance offered by fire control personnel or require them to recontact a caller.
Electronic systems for information sharing
Electronic systems, such as applications designed to share information with operational personnel about people who have been – or who are – receiving survival guidance, can help to record, share and co-ordinate critical information about multiple people at risk.
Electronic systems that are integrated with the mobilising system and extract incident information avoid duplication of work for fire control personnel and help maintain information accuracy. If such electronic systems are not integrated with mobilising systems, effective processes should be in place to ensure information remains current and correlates with the incident log.
An electronic system may allow others to access and update information directly, including:
- Fire control personnel
- Operational personnel at the incident ground
- Buddy, consortium or other assisting fire and emergency controls
Effective electronic systems should simultaneously display information in fire control and at the incident ground, for example via a command unit.
For incidents involving multiple people at risk from a fire in a tall building, electronic systems may also allow information to be displayed at the bridgehead.
Electronic systems used to share information between fire control and the incident ground should include effective notifications, such as audible and visual indicators, confirming that information has been received and acknowledged.
Call filtering and categorisation
Configuring fire control mobilising systems to categorise and filter calls may make it easier to differentiate between different types of calls being received, as well as their sources, and to manage and share information about people at risk with the incident ground.
Incident types or tags can be used to categorise and filter incident records. Call types or tags may be used to identify:
- People trapped and receiving survival guidance who are in immediate danger and whose rescue should be prioritised
- People trapped and receiving survival guidance who are not in immediate danger, such as those in a building where the normal evacuation route is affected by fire, but whose flat is unaffected
- People with vulnerabilities, such as impaired mobility
- People who have been advised to stay put
- People who have been advised to evacuate
The nomination of a single point of contact (SPoC) in fire control and at the incident ground will improve the accuracy, consistency and efficiency of information sharing and recording.
Command support
Mobilising resources to the incident ground to perform the specific role of receiving and managing information about multiple people at risk from fire control will support the timely co-ordination of information and the development of tactical plans to rescue people who are trapped.