New System Aids Firemen In Locating Calls

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30044, 31 January 1963, Page 12

New System Aids Firemen In Locating Calls

A. new push-button street directory and information file for the quick and exact location of fire calls for drivers is now operating in the Headquarters Station of the Christchurch Fire Brigade. The system was devised by Senior Station Officer E. J. Powell, of the St. Albans Fire Station.

“The Christchurch fire district now covers almost 200 square miles and contains more than 2600 streets. It would not be reasonable to expect any watehroom duty man, duty officer or driver to know the location of every street and the shortest route to it. It would be bad practice to rely on the men knowing this, and therefore all calls must be checked by the duty man and duty officer,” said the Chief 7 ire Officer (Mr L. R. Osmond) yesterday, in explaining the system.

He said thait when a fire call was received by telephone, the conversation between the caller and duty man was recorded on tape.

When the caller said the name of the street in which the fire was, the duty man pressed a button with the first two initials of title street named on it. This released a catch in the filing system contained in a large steel cabinet against the wall, and a file of cards came down from the cabinet.

The name of the required street could be seen by the duty man and officer on duty in the watchroom without moving. The colour ot the

card immediately showed which of the areas covered by the headquarters station and eight outside stations the street was in.

The card also indicated the units that should be sent to the fire call. For example, depending on the location, two units should be sent from Sydenham, or one unit from Sydenham and one from Woolston.

The card also showed the shortest route from the station, or stations, to the street; the water supply available, or the site of the nearest available water supply; special fire risks in the area (such as a petrol station), who should be in .rmed of the fire call, and so on.

“The alarm call is sounded in the outside stations by the duty man pushing the required buttons in the watchroom at the Headquarters station,” Mr Osmond ex-Radio-Telephone “By telephone, the duty man or duty officer, conveys the required information to the outside station. The duty man or duty officer is also in radio-telephone contact with the appliances on the way to

the fire, and additional information can be relayed if required. "The index and information filing system devised by Mr Powell provides the best means of quickly and accurately locating the scene of the fire. When persons call the fire brigade about their homes on fire, possibly with children in the homes, they are usually excited and sometimes panic-stricken. It is not always easy to get the correct location of a fire. Of course, we always know the direction of the fire and units can be on their way. The checking of street name, with the tape-recorder in case of doubt, and with the street index can pinpoint it exactly and also demonstrate when an excited person has got his facts astray,” Mr Osmond said.

He said that the possibility of having duplicate cards in the system to be handed to the drivers before they set out in answer to a call was being considered. It was also intended to have the index and information systems installed at the eight outside stations. Mr Powell had first installed a similar system, covering about 800 streets, at the St Albans Fire Station. "It will take about two years before the system is operating so that it provides double checks at all outside stations as well as headquarters. One of the most important features of Mr Powell’s system is that it can take many more cards as more streets come into our fire district,” Mr Osmond said. Mr Powell said he had examined all the commercial

filing and index systems available and had experimented with four of the systems before devising th* one that had now been operating successfully at th* St Albans Fire Station for a long period. “It took me about six months to work out the system. Most commercial indexing systems are built for the operation of one person. They are also, naturally, compact. None had been designed to work required in fire station watchrpoms where quick, visual access is of major importance because of the essential need to have units on their way to a fire call as soon as possible. The new streets, coming thick and fast in recent years, quickly put maps out of date. The system in the Headquarters Station can take 5000 cards, double the number of streets in the fire district, at present, and should give satisfactory service for 10 to 20 years," Mr Powell said.