Dispatch question...

[Slaytallica45]

ive noticed that when some of our neighboring counties departments are dispatched, instead of being dispatched as (ex. engine 12 responding to 1234 whatever road. for the smoke condition) its dispatched as (engine 12 responding box 1234, smoke conditon) and i was wondering what exactly they meant by "box". this isnt the way my department is dispatched and was kind of confused when i heard this

[KEEPBACK200FEET]

A box alarm is the standardized response to a reported fire or rescue. Usually, multiple companies are dispatched at the same time on a box alarm. The term box alarm originates from the original pull boxes located on the street in many communities.

[needlejockey]

A box alarm pretty much determines who is sent on the call. Here in my county a Local Box gets one company. A structure Box gets three companies. My particular station has 6 box areas. Depending on which box it is determines our mutual aid.

[JHR1985]

Here, we have the whole cities divided into boxes... like 300. So, they give us a street and a box number, and we turn to that box and look up the street

[Dave1983]

My county is divided into almost 800, 1 mile x 1 mile square boxes or, as we call them, grids. Each grid is further divided into 1/2 mile x 1/2 mile sub-grids. The grids are numbered from north to south (1-770) and the subgrids use letters, east & west. So, for example, I live in county grid 447A. Which puts me in mid-county, west half of the grid.

Each fire & EMS unit in the county has a master grid book, so they are able to respond any place in the county. Our county wide dispatch gives the radio tac channel, type of call, address and grid number at time of dispatch.

A typical dispatch would be: " Tac one-delta, Engine 45, dumpster fire, 123 Main St, grid 234B"

Each grid is assigned units by type of rig and type of call useing computerized "run cards". There is a run card for each grid in the county, for each type of call. Calls are numbered by code, 1-11. A code 1 is an EMS call. A code 3 is an MVC. A code 4 is a structure fire. A code 6 is a Haz-Mat and so on. The run cards have alarms built in, 1-10.

Its not as complicated as it sounds. ;)

We are now about half way in to a wireless computerized maping system, which will bring up a map of the grid, along with call information on a laptop in each rig.

[Slaytallica45]

thanks guys, i had been trying to figure this out for a while