No members responding

[modernmidnight]

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

[PNEFD23]

Was the Capt. that signed on aware of the personal situation? If so, the request for MA was his decision. If he wasn't, the senior FF had the responsibility to inform him and ask for direction, or to make the decision to call for MA himself.

In my Dept. we are instructed to use our judgement, and also error on the side of caution.

"When in doubt, bang 'em out" They can always be recalled.

[NFD1957]

does your dispatch have sops for requesting mutual aid at certain intervals when having a re tone such as 2nd request, 3rd request, etc.? In my area many departments have procedures set in place where mutual aid is automatically requested when the 1st due co has to be requested a 3rd time. which is about 15 minutes after the initial dispatch.

[Eng34FF]

We wouldn't have had a choice here. If the proper apparatus does not respond within 5 minutes, the next due department is dispatched. If there are too many calls without responses, the next due is automatically called on the initial dispatch.

To answer your question, yes the next department should have been called when it became clear that you would be unable to respond.

[carterlakecapt]

I agree with NFD1957. your dispatch should have protocols for mutual aid. Our dispatch will put out the initial dispatch, one minute later the second request will go out, if they do not hear from anybody in a few minutes they will put out the third request and mutual aid the next due. After the third request if we do get a crew to roll it is our responsibility to advise dispatch to cancel the other company. So pretty much if we dont have a truck out the door in less than ten minutes another department is mutual aided.

In your case yes your next due should have been dispatched long before you hit 15 minutes with no response. You can always cancel them if you dont need them.

[PNEFD23]

Totally agree. Our protocol is 2 min between pages, if no response after the 4th page, MA is dispatched. In theory someone is on the way in under 10 min.

Having said that, we usually have the first truck out the door with a full crew as the second page is toning out. I don't believe dispatch has ever had to tone out MA on our behalf due to no response.

There has been occasions during the daytime where the first truck has left with only 2 or 3 aboard after waiting for 3rd page, with no one else in sight, we still roll and request MA on our own.