House Fire Feb 24 2014
South Deerfield MA had a house fire this morning
Units switched to the "Tobey" repeater channel when they arrived at the scene
Time of the original call / dispatch was maybe 858 AM
I tuned in around 906AM - listening via a scanner feed to the
Countywide Fire Dispatch Channel
907 AM - South Deerfield Tower at the scene
912 AM - 4 tone sets transmitted - apparently this was a upgrade to a
"First Alarm" - Deerfield Engine + Sutherland Engine to the fire -
Whately Engine to move up to ("cover") the South Deerfield Fire
Station - Bernardston as the RIT (Rapid Intervention Team)
916 AM - Greenfield Eng 1 signed on as responding (apparently they
were dispatched on the Greenfield FD channel by the Greenfield 911
Center)
917 AM - Bernardston Eng 2 responding as RIT (2 repeaters heard
beating very loudly against each other on this one message)
918 AM - retones
0919 - Whately Eng 3 signs on to cover
920 AM - Sutherland Eng 3 responding
921 AM - Whately Eng 3 rerouted to the fire
921 AM - Deerfield Eng 1 will be responding shortly - rerouted to
cover the South Deerfield Fire Station - (you snooze you loose policy
I guess)
922 AM - Greenfield C2 responding
"Shelburne Control" or "Control" is the dispatcher's ID
925 AM - Greenfield Eng 1 at scene
926 AM - 17 listeners on the live scanner audio feed
926 AM - Whately Eng 3 at scene
928 AM - Sutherland Eng 3 at scene
930 AM - Deerfield Eng 1 at South Deerfield Sta
932 AM - Greenfield C2 at scene
934 AM - Bernardston Eng 2 at scene
Lets do some calculations - from the time that the upgrade was
requested - it took 13 minutes for Greenfield Eng 1 to arrive, 14
minutes for Whately Eng 3, 16 minutes for Sutherland Eng 3, 22 minutes
for Bernardston Eng 2 to arrive. Greenfield Eng 1 is the only career
engine of the 4 engines.
It took Bernardston 5 minutes to roll - 7 minutes for Whately, 8
minutes for Sutherland, and approx 10 minutes for Deerfield.
This is a rural area in western Massachusetts. There might have been
some ambulances at scene. I didnt hear any other South Deerfield units
on the channel so I guess they all rolled and arrived within 9 minutes
of the initial alarm.