New Alert System Modernizes Minnesota Fire Department Responses

The St. Cloud Fire Department's new system alerts all stations directly from the computer-assisted dispatch in Stearns County, Minn.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • linkText
  • Email
(TNS) -- The St. Cloud Fire Department's new alert system can turn on lights in the station, shut off the gas stove, even wake sleeping firefighters gradually to lessen the strain on their hearts.

Now if it could just learn to abbreviate street names.

"St. Germain Street does not come out well," Chief Deputy Dean Wrobbel laughed.

"There were a few hiccups at the beginning, like any new system. But I think this will be a good thing for the department and the city," firefighter Tony Lorenz said.

The department was using an alert system that dated back to the early 1990s, according to Wrobbel. It required mechanical relays, which meant firefighters needed to huddle around a radio to hear a Stearns County dispatcher read the location and nature of a fire.

More problematically, according to Wrobbel, on a few occasions the radio system faltered and the department missed a call from dispatch alerting them to a fire. Dispatch determined that the department had not heard and was not responding, and then called again, costing response time.

So the fire department spent $300,000 and much of the last year installing a new, automated alert system. The system alerts all St. Cloud stations directly from the computer-assisted dispatch in Stearns County.

Stearns County Sheriff's Lt. Robert Dickhaus said the system saves Stearns dispatchers the step of selecting which department to communicate with, because typing a St. Cloud address activates the alert system.

After beginning tests in November, the department fully switched over March 10, Wrobbel said. Aside from the few minor pronunciation issues, which the program's designers have been able to fix as they arise, the results inside the station have been positive.

"They really like it," Wrobbel said of the department's firefighters. "When you hear something over a loudspeaker, especially in a noisy environment, it can be really hard to understand what the call is. Now they can go out and look at the message boards, or the screens, or grab it from the printer."

The system also allows the radio system to function as a backup, Wrobbel said. The redundancy means missed calls are less likely.

Because the fire station is staffed around the clock, firefighters sleep and eat there. Under the old system, an alert would flash lights and loudly announce that they needed to wake up and respond. Wrobbel said being woken that way regularly can be hard on the heart.

The new system ramps up the tones and lights more slowly, so firefighters don't get "jolted."

"It's better than it was," Lorenz said. "It used to be a pretty abrupt wake-up. Now it's easier on the old pumping station."

Dickhaus said these systems are becoming "the standard" in full-time professional fire departments. Lorenz agreed.

"As time progresses, fire services are becoming more technologically advanced," he said. "This allows us to stay up with the trends."

©2015 the St. Cloud Times (St. Cloud, Minn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • linkText
  • Email