SJFD Dispatchers Aid Summit Fire Command Post

In addition to strike teams of firefighters on fire engines assigned to fire suppression operations, San Jose Fire dispatchers were also part of the mutual aid response to the Summit Fire. Senior Dispatcher Tracy Jackson spent two days assisting at the Cal Fire Morgan Hill Command Center’s Expanded Dispatch Center. She was assigned to generate, fill and place requests for overhead personnel and equipment needed to support operations at the fire – making sure mutual aid resources needed to fight the fire and support their activities got the call.

Meanwhile, Senior Dispatchers Tracy Deitschman and Randall Larson were assigned as Incident Dispatchers to the Summit Fire Command Post established at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy. Joined by dispatchers from Santa Clara County Communications, and later by incident dispatchers from Sacramento and Orange County, Tracy and Randall spent nine days with “Summit Communications,” responsible for managing communications 24-hours-a-day between crews on the fireline, command and support staff at the Incident Base Camp,and various allied fire, medical and law enforcement agencies. Operating in a mobile communications unit deployed by Santa Clara County, communications on the Summit Fire was the backbone of incident management and firefighter accountability.

All three of San Jose’s Incident Dispatchers supporting the Summit Fire were trained, certified and qualified in their positions through the California Fire Chiefs Association, Communications Section, and are part of the Fire Department’s Incident Dispatch Team, which regularly responds to provide a communications and resource accountability to major incidents within the city. In previous years, San Jose Fire dispatchers were deployed outside the city as mutual aid resources to provide communications support during the 2006 an 2003 southern California fire sieges, and on numerous other fires.

For more information on the SJFD Incident Dispatch Team, link to: www.sjfd.org/idt.htm

Submitted by Randall Larson, Director, SJFD Incident Dispatch Team.