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A radio communication system to enable firefighters to communicate with ambulance and police service control rooms has been installed in 100 vehicles belonging to County Durham & Darlington fire and rescue service, making it the first in Britain to be fully equipped.
The Firelink system has already been installed in England’s current fire and rescue control rooms, and will become operational as equipment is installed in each service’s vehicles. It will then transfer to the new FireControl national network of linked regional control centres by 2012, when control centre staff will be able to track and monitor vehicles, and mobilise the nearest and most appropriate crews.
Technology installed in fire appliances includes digital radios and mountings for computer equipment that will eventually display geographical maps and site information.
“The new Firelink communications equipment means that when the new control centres are operational, it will be possible to effectively deploy the nearest available and suitable fire appliance or special rescue vehicle to an incident,” said fire minister Saqiq Khan. “This will result in greater resilience, information and incident support for firefighters, and a better service to the public – for both day to day and major incidents.”