Celebrating International Control Room Week

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) is celebrating International Control Room Week by highlighting the extraordinary work the Service’s Control Room Operators do every single day.

Since the beginning of the year, ECFRS Control Room Operators have answered over 12,000 calls from the public. With each call, not knowing the outcome and trying their best to reassure and help the person on the end of the line.

It’s not just calls the team deal with, they also dispatch crews to incidents and move resources around the county to make sure all areas are covered.

Group Manager Dan Partridge oversees the running of the Control Room, he said: “Every emergency we attend starts with a call to our control room. Our staff have dealt with some really tough incidents this year, and they deserve to be recognised for their hard work.

“On top of carrying out their normal duties, the team have had to learn how to use a new Control system which manage responses to incidents in a faster and more effective way.

“I’d like to give a big thank you to our IT team who have worked around the clock to get this system into place, and to this day they continue to support us with anything we may need.”

 The new system went live in June 2023, known as Guardian Command it is provided by Airwave and Motorola. Fergus Mayne, U.K and Ireland Country Manager for Motorola Solutions said:

“Our research led design of Control Room Systems, combined with stable performance and our commitment to continued innovation, supports Essex County Fire and Rescue Service to deliver their emergency response functions.”

“Control room operators have a complex workflow that requires managing huge amounts of data in situations where every second counts. We continue to work closely with fire services to ensure that the entire system works to bring intelligence to the forefront, when and where it is needed.”

Becky Sutton, Station Manager for Control said: “International Control Room Week gives us a chance to celebrate the extraordinary achievements and professionalism of our Control Operators.

“Our Control Operators provide 24/7 cover responding and mobilising to emergency calls from the public, liaising with partner agencies and supporting any ongoing needs of our front-line crews whilst they are deployed at incidents.

“I am excited and pleased to have this opportunity to share with the public what we do best and show the hard work and skill that goes into protecting our communities across Essex.”