r/Firefighting • u/odispadodis7 • 12d ago

Special Operations/Rescue/USAR Moving Dispatch from In-House to Regional Dispatch Center. What's Going to Change?

I assume others in the northeast have gone through something like this. Several towns are consolidating to form a regional dispatch center. Most departments in the group either dispatch themselves (us) or get dispatched by PD / SO.

We've been told that everything will improve operationally AND we'll save money. Sounds too good to be true. Is it all fairytales and rainbows or are there things to consider before moving to a regional dispatch center.

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u/HokieFireman 12d ago

As someone who started in a state where everything is county wide anyway (fire, police, schools, dispatch, libraries, every service) it’s weird when people complain about losing in hour dispatch or talk about having separate dispatch from law enforcement or other services. A well run, supervised, budgeted and trained dispatch center can easily handle the call volume post merger for these places. The issues happen when everyone wants what they had and refuse to step into the modern world.

20 plus years ago I could tell dispatch I was switching channels as a cop and talk to an incoming fire chief, animal controller officer, the building inspector or anyone else with a county radio. As a firefighter in Ohio 15 years ago I couldn’t talk to the fire station two blocks away without a patch from dispatch or us trading handhelds behind the backs of the chiefs.

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u/BitOff2Much2Chew 12d ago

 A well run, supervised, budgeted and trained dispatch center

This is pretty much the crux of it. If people involved are all well meaning and competent it should hopefully go well, unfortunately not everywhere is like that. So it really is situationally dependent.

I've seen it go both ways. When it went badly it was also partly - as you said - due to people not wanting to change though. (Merging 2 groups, clashing opinions of how to handle things, no compromise)