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Mutual Aid Setups
(Before you go on about how people have had topics about MA before, I'd like to present what my area does and see how other people do it similarly or differently)
Okay. In the national capitol area, back in 2007 there was some large meeting between all the major counties and their respective FD's. All units in the NCA now have a 3-number unit designator, with the first number denoting the county, based on this:
Units with a 0 or only 2 numbers come from Washington D.C. itself
100 Series: Arlington County
200 Series: City of Alexandria
300 Series: Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority
400 Series: Fairfax County
500 Series: Prince William County
600 Series: Loudoun County
700 Series: Montgomery County
800 Series: Prince George's County
The second and third numbers denote the station the piece comes from. For example, I live in Fairfax County, and my local station is 31. The engine from Station 31 in Fairfax County is Engine 431 or E431, the medic is Medic 431 or M431, and so on. Sometimes the stations have multiple units with the same designator, those stations are the volunteer ones, which are also staffed by career personnel. The second piece would be Unit Designator-B(ravo). The other exception is when a station has two ambulances or more ambulances. The first would be ambulance UD, the second Ambulance UD-B, and if the ambulance was only ever staffed by volunteers with EMT-B training, it would be Ambulance UD-E Closest unit responds, and additional units in the original box or subsequent alarms also could be MA.
Thats how we do it here, what about other people?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Wade Seely on
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You can debate over and over about which system is better or worse. the key is to know the system your county/ area uses, and have it down pat. If your county uses numbers, know what numbers are around you, there staffing levels, and likely response times. If your county uses town or department designators know what towns you have mutual aid contracts with and their staffing and likely response times.
It really doesn't matter what system you use as long as you know how to use it.
just my Humble opinion
TCSS
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-5 says that we shall all abide by, among other things, the use of NIMS and in that it teaches PLAIN ENGLISH for radio communications, no "special" codes...
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Halverson on
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Number designators aren't special codes. If thats the way your area or county recognizes and address its units, thats plain English to them. The way I see it, that is referring to the use of 10-codes and such, to make departments more inter-compatible, so everyone knows what is going on. If everyone in the area is using the laid out number designators, everyone knows what they mean, so it doesn't matter whether they use them.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on
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This is pretty close to how we do it too. The first number is the city and then we use similar designators. As long as I hear the number, I know what is coming and who is sending it.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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but this is the way I've known it for as long as I've been in the fire service as an explorer
There in lies the issue. I understand you have not been in the fire service a long time and that role being an observer, I understand the concept works for you guys. However, there is a big difference when you have been working on one system for years only to have everything change to a new system in the name of interoperbility. The depts have worked well prior to such a change with simple rig designators, vs this 3 to 4 digit pain in the ass they went to today.
Now the issue I have and as I mentioned is the use of such designators in everyday use. There are many depts that do mutual aid that do not refer to the 3 digit designator in daily operations. Now as I mentioned before I don't know all the other depts numbers nor am I going to care to because when things go to hell, common terminolgy is going to take over. We make out our own MABAS cards so it is pre determined who is coming in, if it is us calling in mutual aid, rarely does another dept make it to our scene, instead they stand by a station until OT comes in with reserve rigs. If we go out for MA we know where we are going, there really is no reason to memorize the rig designators of all the depts, it really is not that important. We use it, we live with it, but I'm not the only one with the same sentiment and for the most part, it doesn't matter how much you learn and memorize the designators, when shit hits the fan, that goes by the wayside.
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If you assign a number system it's a code. In a large scale incident, if I hear 4562 responding and this could be from a different county, I have no friggin idea what is coming, if I hear "dept name" engine 1, I know exactly what it is, that is plain english. Number designators are no different then 10 codes, every dept, area, or state has their own terminology for what they mean, and is what NIMS wants to do away with. You have to start thinking outside your own little world.
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Permalink Reply by Just Plain Craig Moyer on
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IN Delaware we use station and unit 1-5 are engines 6 used to resuces 7 used to ladders. They still are taged with 6 & 7. So station 30 would be 305, Rescue 30. 303 is called Squrt30 but tagged 303. Ambulances are A B or C. There are no duplication of numbers in the state.
For mutual aid we have highargies (sic) set up. So if we had a fire the running order might be stations 30-21-23-14-17-16-19-28. So a house would be dispatched as Station 30 Engine 21 REscue 23. If we needed a ladder 17 would be called since 21 is already on the run and 14 doesn't have a ladder. The next due ladder would be 19 because even though 16 has a ladder the area should not be stripped. 14 would be called for an engine or rescue. Fire Board may call ladder 16 and move ladder 28 to one of the station on thier own. Or call to see if 21 still has a crew for the ladder.
It works pretty well unless a company is left off a grid. Years ago our nieghboring company had a 3 alarm fire. We weren't on the grid and ended up covering a company on the other side of the county. The members were so mad they sat on the engine the whole time they were there.
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OK, it's obvious that almost everyone uses some type of number, as do we. Let me try to point out this flaw; if you cross city,county or state lines, in other words go to somewhere that's not familiar with your numbers. Craig, I'm not picking on you just using your example, I'll be staging officer; you notify me that 303 is on-scene, I don't have a clue, I also don't care what station or where that's at, all I want to know is "rescue" or "engine" and so on. Now with that information and federal resource typing, I know exactly what your bringing to the party. I also don't care if I got 10 engine 1's, I know that each engine will pump to a min standard and is staffed with a min of 3 FF's and an officer. Just for the record we use (department name) engine 1-3 and (department name) rescue 1. Federal resource typing, common terminology and plain english are all part of NIMS.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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In my state we do not have to deal with county run fire departments, as all are municipalities, therefore trying to identify or know what county they are coming from is not rellevant for us.
Every MUNICIPALITY in our mutual aid system has a two digit designated number. We then use plain terminology for whether it is an engine, ladder, or tanker. example 10 ENGINE 1. or 10 AMBULANCE 1. We wanted to go to straight plain language last year at the mutual aid systems annual meeting but some of the names are long and it would take up alot of air time. They settled on town numbers and plain language for what you are riding in.
Really though, most everybody will say it seems to work for them or there system is best.... because it is in place, used everyday and they understand it locally. Like your post, I am confused why you would call an ambulance UD-B or E?
So even if it is a two digit, three digit, or use the town or county's name.... it doesn't matter as long as you know who is responding when you call for them.
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Good point Trainer, We run out of state quite a bit. We add New Castle County Engine 305 or Squrt 30 when responding. So far we used this in Maryland, Pa and New Jersey without issues. Of course they were close to the state line within 20 miles so most knew of New Castle County. Going down state to dofferent counties we do the same thing.
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Permalink Reply by Perry Bryant on
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I'm in Saint Marys County, Southern Maryland. Mechanicsville VFD
That is how we used to be.
"Mutual Aid to Prince Georges County Company 2, Squad 2 is due."
We would mark up on our county dispatch(Fireboard), Squad 2, Lieutenant with 7.
Fireboard- "OK squad 2 switch to ___ channel for operations"
On that mutual aid channel we were Squad 62.
Now we are just Saint Marys Squad 2 for whatever MA we are doing.
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Sorry, UD was just me using an acronym for Unit Designator. Because of the way the system is set up, you can't have units that share the same number with other units. An example is if a station, for this I'll use 22 in Fairfax, has two or more ambulances. You can't have one ambulance being 422 and the other 423, because 23 is it's own station. Therefore, we use the letters to signify another unit of the same type from the same station. They also use it for the engines. They only use Echo if the ambulance is only ever staffed with volunteer EMT's. Some of the stations have only one ambulance, but it is staffed by volunteers only, so it is designated by Echo to signify that. It is confusing, which I know supports some (read most) of the posts against the number system, but thats the way it gets done. As to your final point, thats right on the money. We could go on and on about the pro's and cons of both systems, but it boils down to that.
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