The last dispatch

This story was originally published in The Westshore newsletter, Dec. 9, 2021. 

The Langford Fire Dispatch team fielded its last call this week, after more than 33 years of guiding firefighters across the Capital Regional District to emergencies. The nine professional dispatchers were housed at Langford Fire Rescue, under chief Chris Aubrey.

"It’s a sad day here. We’re not just saying goodbye to coworkers and friends, but to family. The firefighting world is very tightknit. Even though they don’t go with us on calls, they’re with us on the radio, and there when we get back to the station. They have not only kept the community safe, they've kept us firefighters safe. I am in their debt," Aubrey said.

The in-house dispatch service took care of Langford, Sooke, Metchosin, Highlands, and all the non-electoral districts in the CRD, like Port Renfrew, the Gulf Islands, Pender Island, and Salt Spring Island. Langford Fire Dispatch had the contract to dispatch fire for CRD clients until it expired this month.

A CRTC ruling requires all emergency dispatchers to upgrade their technology to Next Generation 911 capability by 2024. That level of technology is like going from a rotary phone to a smartphone, Aubrey said. It will dramatically change the level of information available to 911 dispatchers. When implemented, it will be able to integrate GPS location data from cell phones, receive texts, video calls, and even emergency calls from social media. But it also costs a lot.

A conservative estimate puts the upgrades for Langford at over $1 million. This is why they made the hard decision to close down Langford Fire Dispatch at the end of the contract. Langford isn’t the only local dispatch centre to close; BC used to have 25 smaller dispatchers, and now there are only eight, Aubrey said.

Since Dec. 1, Langford’s firefighters have been dispatched by Surrey Regional Fire Dispatch. As of Dec. 7, the other CRD clients including Sooke and Metchosin are being dispatched out of the Saanich-based E-Comm 911 centre. View Royal and Colwood made the switch to Surrey years ago, leaving the Langford dispatchers in 2012 for cost savings.

Aubrey expects there will be cost savings from the move to Surrey dispatch. Under the cost recovery model the CRD used, Langford ended up paying about 50% of the cost of running the centre, as the largest municipality in the contract. But Surrey has the economy of scale that Langford will financially benefit from, as they are charged on a per-call basis.

Both Sooke and Metchosin fire halls posted farewell notes to the Langford Fire Dispatch teams, thanking them for years of service.

"On behalf of all of us at Sooke Fire, our most heartfelt thank you to all Langford Dispatchers for being there alongside us in our most challenging, heartbreaking, and difficult times," Sooke Fire Rescue wrote.

"Our many thanks to the dispatchers who have supported us through the years—your calm voice on the phone for our community members in need, reliable support for our firefighters when called upon and a continual resource connecting and building our communities," the Metchosin Fire Department wrote.