Emergency Call Back Procedures: How Does Your Department Handle It?

by Mike Walker

Apr 19, 2009

My department has just started the process of updating our emergency call back system. We would use this when an incident has grown to the point that off duty personnel are needed for support. I would greatly appriciate knowing how your department handles this. Is it done by a computer aided system, or good old fashioned phone tree? Does your department have that policy in writing? Would you be willing to share it?

I am also interested in knowing how many people actually respond. For instance, if your goal is to restaff apparatus, how many people do you typically have to call in order to staff that rig. Some departments I've spoken to get about a 25% response. Does your department experience the same?

Thanks in advance.
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  • up

    Mike Walker

    Thanks for the responses brothers. I truly appriciate it.

    Apr 21, 2009

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    Kevin Schroeder

    We use a combination of systems. When needing to recall a limited number of staff, our dispatch center will call thorugh a prepared call list. Our staff has chosen to establish a call schedule that lists what shift is the priamry call back group for the day (We call back frequently to backfill for EMS transport activity). In fire situations and other incidents such as tech. rescue, MCI's, etc. we use the paging system (Motorola Minitors). We have specific tone sets to call all off duty staff back, just officers (BC's and above), or Tech Rescue Team members. This gives us the versatility to get the people we need for specific incidents or needs. Our dipsatch can generate these tones, our mobiles in our command vehicle, or our BC's portable radios are also programmed to encode the pager tones. So far it has worked well.

    Apr 26, 2009

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    JOSEPH KOONCE

    we are a paid dept in nj. we use a pager system and cell phone recall system. it can either be a shift recall on a small incident to a full dept recall on something larger. shift recall is the off going shift. we work a 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 4 off. members returning depend on time of day.

    Apr 26, 2009