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.