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THE FIRST of nine state-of-the-art coordination and communications vehicles – designed for use in major emergencies by the fire and rescue service in England – has been made available.
Part of the Government’s £200m investment in New Dimension equipment, the enhanced command support (ECS) vehicles will be strategically located around the country and mobilised to regional or national-scale emergencies.
The first vehicle was handed over to Gloucester Fire and Rescue Service in September, and the other eight will be rolled out by the end of 2008.
The ECS vehicles will be used to coordinate the New Dimension specialist units that are deployed – including urban search and rescue units, high-volume pumping resources, decontamination units, support vehicles and their crews. The vehicles will provide support to the incident commander and are the base from which all the strategic holding area operations can be coordinated.
Each vehicle will provide a variety of communications systems so that, should one fail, others remain available. The communications systems on board include satellite phones, UHF, VHF, marine band and secure digital radio systems, and mobile phone networks. The vehicles also feature computers and Wi-Fi internet access laptops, with the capability to display information and data from multiple applications, geographical information systems and situation awareness software.
An example of future ECS vehicle deployment would be the collapse of a large office building with suspected contamination, where some 300 vehicles and units could be mobilised from fire services across the country.
Although part of a national resource, the vehicles will be hosted by the following fire and rescue services: Cumbria, Devon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hereford and Worcester, Kent, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Suffolk.
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