How Many Ff From Nc

[EMTFIRE4141]

Hey How many people are from North Carolina? If you are from NC, do you use automatic mutal aid? If so what are some of your guide lines that you go by?

[ranahan]

In the county where I volunteer (Avery), the FDs have a standing automatic aid agreement among all of the county's FDs. It's particularly important in our area because there's so little area covered by hyrdants -- those aid companies are typically the only true source of water supply.

In the case of a reported fire, the first-due department is dispatched along with the two departments closest to the incident's location. This also occurs for fire alarm activation, though auto-aid companies are to stage at their stations until the first-due investigates or other information is provided that indicates a working fire.

We also use standing mutual aid agreements with the departments in neighboring counties (Watauga, Caldwell, Burke, McDowell and Mitchell in NC; Carter in TN).

Let me know if there are any other questions you might have about our automatic and mutual aid arrangements.

[EMTFIRE4141]

We are in Wilkes County. We in the process of getting everyone sign up for auto-aid. I also work with comm center. My understanding is that we are going to page 2 depts on a call (1-whos district it is in and 1-nearest dept). Some of the depts have voice that they want their dept and 2 other depts paged. I think that it needs to be the same for all depts as long as we have 2 initial depts are paged. We also still have a lot of area that does not have hydrants.

[ranahan]

Paging two departments for an incident is fine...as long as any two departments in the county can field the required apparatus and personnel to work the typical job.

For instance, almost every jurisdiction around expects the following resources as response for a working fire in an SFD:
-- three engines
-- one truck
-- one rescue
-- one chief
-- the personnel to man all of these

So, can a two-department dispatch achieve all of this? If not, you folks might need to reconsider the three-department dispatch. The whole point of auto-aid is to get resources to the scene so there'll be less delay. If you know your fellow firefighters will need that much help, going from two to three-station dispatch shouldn't even be a question.

If you wanna get technical, it's really a FIVE department dispatch for working fire in Avery:
-- the "home" department
-- the two nearest departments
-- the countywide ladder (that's me)
-- one of the two rescues (I'm also there)
And even then, it's rare to actually have enough resources available then!

This is all just food for thought, mind you.

Have you thought about mentioning that they could do auto-aid dispatch of two departments PLUS an auto-aid "standby" of the nearest department to those two districts? In other words, have the third department proceed to their station(s) and crew up. That way there'd only be two working departments, but the third would be ready if anything occurred. AND the third would be ready to cover other incidents in the two districts that are busy. Again, just a thought...let me know if there's anything else I can do.