Page 31 - THE FIRE STATION

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buildings or facilities at risk (e.g. the SNCB’s OS plan, the BSCA’s Last but not least, the control rooms is fitted with large monitors
PIU plan, SEVESO companies, links to hazmat databases, access fed by the CCTV cameras installed throughout the building, al-
to rain radar websites, weather information, potential flood zones lowing non-stop surveillance of the premises.
and hydrological data from the Walloon Region, Street View,
access to CCTV cameras installed in the city, in public transport
(TEC and SNCB), or operated by the police (motorways, helicop-
ters, etc.).

The position of all vehicles is tracked and visualised on a real-
time map, while the dispatching software displays pictures of
the buildings concerned. All of this helps support response
operations.

O. “It’s a control room in the true sense of the word!”

The control room is the place from where the duty officer can
decide on the advisability of designating and dispatching further
support teams. In a case where the crisis centre is activated, a
whole series of control room functions is initiated, and specific
crisis centre staff are called in to take over all crisis-related tasks
from control room staff.

The control room may also be required to call in additional staff.
However, in the case of a major disaster, a serious crisis or any
other operational and organisational emergencies, calling in ad-
ditional resources is the responsibility of the duty officer, the sta-
tion commander for the week in question or even the fire brigade
colonel, via an IT application which sends out a text message
(possibly predefined) to predefined target groups.

The control room also handles calls from gas companies (ORES,
Fluxys, Air Liquide…), the local police (security fences, assaults)
and the Federal Police (WPR), the water utility (SWDE), the Nature
and Forest Department, the inland waterways, the SNCB (rail in-
cidents), the Walloon public transport operator (TEC) for incidents
involving buses or trams, Charleroi-Bruxelles-Sud airport, secu-
rity companies, housing companies, municipal services, social
security centres (CPAS), etc.

Within the fire station, at least one control room official must
always be present in the control room. This allows all calls to be
centralised, via an internal intercom system covering the whole
fire station and ending in the control room.