Augmenting attendance to respond better and quicker to incidents with up to date incident information.
More appropriate response increases public safety and reduces damage to property.
Reducing attendance when possible helps maintain cover for emergency calls.
Increased awareness and confidence in Control Room.
Proven secondary effect in causing ‘early hang ups’ for hoax calls.
It is often the case that the Control Room receives multiple calls regarding a single incident and many will provide different, if not conflicting, information.
The ability to use 999eye allows the operator to a fuller appreciation of the location and risk of the incident and, if necessary, modify attendance and provide up to date information to the attending crews.
Example case
On receipt of a call regarding a house fire the 999eye system was used to receive some on scene video from the caller and the attendance was augmented due to the severity of the incident. Whilst reviewing the footage, the operator noticed a person reentering the property and was able to immediately alert the responding crews together with the Police and Ambulance services.
The operator was also able to call the member of the public back in order to provide safety advice and ascertain any further risks whilst the crews were on route.
As well as calls that require an immediate response the Control Room also fields a number of calls per day that wouldn’t necessarily warrant an urgent attendance including monitored alarms, animals and other special service calls.
The use of 999eye in these situations has the potential to reduce the need for attendance and allow for crews to be more available for emergency calls.
Example case: A familiar opening line to a call ‘It’s not an emergency but...’ led to one operator being able to provide real-time assistance to a property owner, as they streamed video back to the control room whilst keeping the call open, so that they were able to find and close the mains water stop cock and prevent further damage to the property from flooding.
Alongside the use of 999eye the control room operators have also been provided with training input by Fire Behaviour experts and ‘hands-on’ training at the service’s Fire Houses to experience how fire can develop in different scenarios.
Coupled with the footage received from 999eye the operators are now able to make more confident decisions.
When a caller has reported seeing smoke from a domestic property, the operator (using 999eye) has been able to detect flames in a shared loft space of a number of neighbouring properties and been able to augment the attendance from the initial mobilisation resulting in a quicker, more effective response and reduced damage to the properties.
In many cases incidents that the Fire Service attends require either supporting resources at the time or follow up actions from other agencies.
Footage from incidents gathered using 999eye has been shared as appropriate with:
Police forces
Environment Agency
Electricity suppliers
Fire Investigation Units
