November 17, 2014
Enhancing Fire Safety and Services in Communities
Corner Brook and Bay of Islands Region Continue to Have the Option to Receive 911 Fire Call Relay Services from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
The Provincial Government announced today that fire departments in communities in the Corner Brook and Bay of Islands region will continue to have the option of receiving 911 fire call relay and verification services from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) until January 1, 2016.
“At the meeting on November 13, 2014, with representatives of the communities, we heard that additional time is needed for some municipalities and local service districts in the current Corner Brook RNC 911 call-taking area to appropriately budget for and plan for future dispatch of their respective fire departments. We are providing this 12-month transitional measure to respond to their concerns.”
- The Honourable Judy Manning, Minister of Justice and Public Safety and Minister Responsible for Fire and Emergency Services-Newfoundland and Labrador
Once province-wide Basic 911 becomes operational, all 911 calls outside the Avalon Peninsula will be answered by call-takers at the City of Corner Brook. Those calls will be transferred to the appropriate emergency responder in the area in question. For many volunteer fire departments, this will mean calls being transferred to a paging system. For the volunteer fire departments in the Corner Brook and Bay of Islands region, they will have the option of continuing to have those calls transferred to the Corner Brook detachment of the RNC, which will in turn transfer the page and follow their existing fire call relay and verification protocols to ensure the receipt of the message.
Under section 3 of the Fire Chief Regulations under the Municipalities Act, 1999, the chief of a municipal fire department is responsible for the deployment of fire department personnel. In the same respect, policing services are responsible for the dispatching of police officers, and ambulance services are responsible for their own dispatch. More information about the current 911 service in the Corner Brook and Bay of Islands region is contained in the backgrounder below.
Fire departments and other emergency responders may choose how they wish to handle dispatch, which may include carrying out the functions themselves or the regionalization or sharing of services. For example, St. John’s Regional Fire Department has been providing dispatch to five other neighbouring fire departments on a fee-for-service basis for some time. Grand Falls-Windsor also does the same for the Town of Bishop's Falls. It is up to the communities how they wish to proceed.
QUICK FACTS
- The Corner Brook and Bay of Islands region will continue to have the option of receiving 911 fire call relay and verification services from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) until January 1, 2016.
- A new province-wide Basic 911 system will be in place by the end of 2014. Once activated, it will be available to all residents via landline and/or wireless telephones, where a cellular signal can be accessed.
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Media contact:
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Bradley Power Public Relations Specialist Fire and Emergency Services-Newfoundland and Labrador 709-729-0857, 690-1810 bradleypower@gov.nl.ca |
BACKGROUNDER
Current 911 Service in Corner Brook and Bay of Islands Region
The existing 911 call-taking centres operated by the St. John’s Regional Fire Department (established in 1976), the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) detachments in Corner Brook (established in 1988) and Labrador City (established in 2008), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in St. John’s (RCMP) were all set up in isolation of one another and developed their own operating procedures.
As announced on August 28, 2014, the province-wide Basic 911 service will have two call-taking centres operated by the St. John’s Regional Fire Department and the City of Corner Brook. Once operational, the RNC and RCMP will no longer be answering 911 calls, although 911 calls for police assistance will be transferred to them.
The province-wide Basic 911 service will follow National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, which does not include fire call relay and verification protocols once a caller has been relayed to an emergency responder’s paging system.
In current service in the Corner Brook and Bay of Islands region, the Corner Brook RNC operator takes the 911 call, collects the necessary information and contacts the local fire department number, which triggers the appropriate paging system. The operator then relays the information to the paging system. The fire department has two minutes to call the operator back and confirm receipt of the call. If the call confirmation is not received, the operator makes a second call to the fire department. If the second call is not acknowledged then the operator calls the fire chief at a telephone number provided to the RNC.
The Corner Brook detachment of the RNC currently provides 911 call-taking services for police, ambulance, the Corner Brook Fire Department, and the following volunteer fire departments:
- Cox’s Cove Volunteer Fire Department;
- Gillams Volunteer Fire Department;
- Hughes Brook-Irishtown-Summerside (H.I.S.) Regional Volunteer Fire Department;
- Massey Drive Volunteer Fire Department;
- McIver’s Volunteer Fire Department;
- Meadows Volunteer Fire Department;
- Mount Moriah Volunteer Fire Department;
- Pasadena Volunteer Fire Rescue;
- Steady Brook-Little Rapids Regional Volunteer Fire Department;
- South Shore Volunteer Fire Department (Humber Arm South); and
- York Harbour-Lark Harbour Regional Volunteer Fire Department.
Government has said since the release of Pomax Inc.’s A Final Report on A Feasibility Study for a 9-1-1 and/or Enhanced (E-9-1-1) System in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador (2012), there is a distinction between call-taking and dispatching, and the new province-wide Basic 911 service is a call-taking service, not a dispatching service. This is consistent with the approach in other jurisdictions.
Basic 911 call-taking involves answering the telephone, asking the caller if they want police, fire, or ambulance help, determining the location of the caller, and then transferring the call to the appropriate responding agency. Dispatch includes the management of people and equipment, for example: taking detailed information about the incident and relaying to emergency responders; sending primary or back-up resources; and, ensuring an appropriate response is underway on behalf of the individual requesting assistance. Dispatching is the responsibility of the respective fire, police or ambulance service.
2014 11 17 1:10 p.m.