Historical Fires

General Information
The Dublin Fire Brigade control room is located in the headquarters of the central fire station located off Pearse street/ Townsend Street in Dublin. The control room was opened in 1996 after replacing the previous one in the former Tara Street Station. It is a 3 storey air conditioned purpose built building.
It houses offices for the controllers and staff of the computer aided mobilization project (C.A.M.P.) personnel and of course the control room and sub areas itself. 

At present fire calls are taken by firefighters for Dublin, Laois, Meath, Longford and Wexford with emergency ambulance calls for approx. 85% of Dublin being taken by fire brigade personnel dispatching Dublin Fire Brigade ambulances.

Emergency ambulance calls for the rest of Dublin and the surrounding counties are taken by Eastern Region Health Authority controllers who also dispatch and coordinate their non-emergency and patient transfer ambulance cases (see the Irish Ambulance Network for more information)These controllers share the control room under the new centralization scheme whereby it is hoped that there will be 3 control centres for all of the Irish Republic.

By July 2005 it is hoped to have the following counties fire calls routed to and fire appliances dispatched by Dublin Fire Brigade staff: Carlow, Monaghan,Cavan, Westmeath,, Kildare, Offaly, Louth, Wicklow and Kilkenny.

Since July 2004 a new shift system operated in the control room means that staff are rotated between fire and control room duties with the majority of their time on control room operations. At any one time there are 5 firefighters and one supervisor / sub-officer in the control room with the same again on stand down time.This means that should the need arise for example in a major emergency the staff level can be doubled within a minute or two. Since the change over the number of calltaking positions has increased as well to 12.

In July 2004 the new STORM system (Strategic Tasking Operational Resource Management) was brought on stream.This new software (and hardware) system has greatly expanded the options available to calltakers with particular emphasis on map display which automatically displays the incident location on a second screen when the address is entered.

Fire Brigade Controllers
On a normal shift 5 firefighters and 1 sub officer / supervisor are in the control room with a mobilization officer in charge of the wider aspect of vehicle and personnel movements. One firefighter operates the radio system and uses a computer to keep the status of vehicles and messages updated e.g. at a fire, persons reported trapped, police req. etc. the other four firefighters are there primarily to answer emergency 999 / 112 calls and dispatch the appropriate response. They also liaise with other services such as the hospitals, gas, police, electricity, airport etc. as required.

The sub officer/ supervisor is in charge of the control room and will make any major decisions which may be referred to them. Their primary role is as a supervisor but due to the volume of calls received they may also take emergency calls.
Overseeing the whole operation primarily during serious incidents is the senior District officer called the mobilization officer who has a nearby office.

Call Taking Procedure.
The caller will ring 999 or 112 and a Eircom operator will ask which service do you require Gardai, Fire or Ambulance,
When you ask for fire in Dublin you are then transferred to the Dublin Fire Brigade control room where a calltaker will answer "Fire and ambulance service"

Once a call is received the controller selects the type of incident given by the caller e.g. house fire, cardiac arrest and then types in the first few letters of the address and searches on it. The computer comes up with several matches and the correct one is picked. This means that the rest of the address plus additional directions are automatically retrieved from the data base and filled in.
An adjacent screen then displays the incident location on a colour map with hydrant locations etc.
A phone number is added and a key is pressed which lets the computer offer the appropriate  response. The controller has the final say based on the information they have received. Once the key is pressed a message printout appears in the nearest station along with bells sounding for that particular vehicle. Crews already on the road are given the information via the radio.

Premises such as banks, hospitals factory's, church's etc. can be searched by name and again when found their details are already in the database.
A routine call would take about 30 seconds depending largely on the caller being able to give adequate location details.

Decision Making
For those interested here are a few examples of the information a calltaker may need and the response they would send to that type of call: (Please note that this refers to Dublin only as each county has different initial responses which are decided upon by their Chief Fire Officer in conjunction with the Local Authority and budget!) Also Dublin is the only county to have all firefighters trained as Emergency Medical Technician and operating an Emergency Ambulance Service.

Report of a shed on fire.....
1. Address of fire along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when traveling from a particular direction etc.
2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.
3. Is everyone safe and away from the fire?
4. Is the fire near the house, is it a big shed, what is inside the shed e.g. gas cylinders, paint tins etc?
One or two fire appliances would be sent depending on the size of the shed it's proximity to the house, it's contents and the availability of water e.g. town or rural location.

Report of a cardiac arrest
This is an automatic response of a fire appliance and an ambulance as both have a crew of E.M.T.'s (in Dublin) and carry oxygen and defibrillation equipment. In addition the ambulance carries intubation and drug therapy equipment for use by a Doctor or E.M.T.-A.


1. Address of the arrest along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when traveling from a particular direction etc.
2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.
3. Is anyone doing C.P.R. and do they want to try if so the calltaker will talk them through it.
4. If inside a large building the calltaker will ask the person to have people flagging down the rescuers to the nearest accessible point to the casualty.

Since brain death starts occurring within approximately 5 minutes it is imperative that crews arrive swiftly and that the C.P.R. (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) is started from the moment the person is found.
The availability of at least 7 E.M.T.s means that the patient has a better chance of survival. e.g. when you get a large male upstairs you need to do C.P.R. , Defibrillate, run back downstairs for a carrying sheet and blankets, struggle to get this person downstairs and out on to the trolley which you have brought in near the door and carry your resuscitation bag, suction equipment and defibrillator downstairs as well as the patient all the while not stopping C.P.R. for more than 30 secs and without injuring yourself in the process.
Strictly speaking from the time you make a decision to move to hospital one person is doing ventilation's and chest compression with suction possibly and the other getting and moving equipment.
Now consider 7 trained people helping all doing a part of the whole job. This means that 3 people can stay with the patient while the rest fetch equipment and even save time by turning the ambulance in the direction of the hospital!

Report of a House Fire With Persons Trapped Inside

1. Address of fire along with any more exact details of address such as cross streets distance from intersection when traveling from a particular direction etc.
2. Caller telephone number- very important as we may need to ring the person back if there is a difficulty in finding the location or the caller is cut off.
3. Is everyone safe and away from the fire? If not the location and number of the persons trapped must be ascertained as more fire appliances / resources may need to be sent.
4. The calltaker will give advice to the caller if they are trapped to close doors, block smoke entry, and to get near a window to breathe and to be able to alert fire crews as to their location. It may also transpire that they can drop down a set of keys as some house owners / apartment dwellers keep their front doors locked. Having a key will save us time in gaining entry. In addition many of the new development have access code for main gates which slow down responses if not given to the calltaker.

In the suburbs 2 fire appliances, 1 ambulance, l district officer and the emergency tender (Heavy Rescue) will be initially dispatched. However more can be sent on initially if the information warrants it e.g. several people trapped require more ambulances and more fire engines.
In the city centre the 30M (100 foot) turntable ladder is sent to all such calls.

In short each call type has a predetermined attendance (P.D.A.) that is the computer will offer the appropriate number of resources based on the incident type entered e.g. skip on fire (1 pump) or hospital on fire (2 pumps, turntable ladder, rescue tender, ambulances, district officer) however this may be upgraded or downgraded depending on the information received.

Call Statistics
The Department of the Environment and Local Government publishes figures every year  around March with a list of statistics for fire calls in Ireland. The next set are due shortly and the above updated. It is interesting to note however that from 1996 to 1998 the volume of responses to incidents for the Dublin Fire Brigade Ambulance service went up from 70,146 to 72,455.

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Details	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Total Incidents for Dublin	92,206	93,714	93,780	99,956	105,277	102,959	98.489	91,001
Ambulance	70,146	71,280	72,455	74,815	76,954	77,484	75,312	68,610
Fire	12,018	11,143	9,853	11,563	13,106	11,613	10,143	11,221
Road Accidents	1,329	1,925	1,853	2,007	2.067	2.083	1,925	1,844
Flooding	390	404	315	335	264	230	417	213
Rescue	36	83	78	85	54	37	32	53
Other, non fire rescue	2,722	2,278	2,256	3,187	513	619	348	292
Haz.Mat. (no fire)	87	219	233	209	40	95	3	59
Malicious	2,747	2,626	1,862	2,609	3,039	2,216	1,494	844
Good Intent	2,728	2,955	3,898	4,617	5,583	4,835	2,091	769
Other Counties
Co. Laois (Total Incidents)		681	642	700	642	789	691	626
Co. Wexford (Total Incidents)					1,433	1,427	1,242	1,277
Co. Longford (Total Incidents)					496	625	625	541
Co. Meath (Total Incidents)		684	727	869	1,184	1,024	1,066	997

Calls for counties other than Dublin are not included in the total incidents for Dublin.

These figures are the total number of incidents to ambulance or fire calls and not the total number of turnouts. e.g. 3 ambulances and / or fire appliances may be turned out to the one road traffic accident incident and while a number of stations and resources may turn out to the call it counts as only one incident.

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Related Pages
D.F.B. Mainpage | D.F.B. Control Room | D.F.B. Fire Operations | D.F.B. Pipes & Drums
D.F.B. History | D.F.B. Stations | D.F.B Contacts | D.F.B Ambulance