Okanagan Mountain (north and east of Penticton) will become the cornerstone of a new 1.6 million dollar upgraded fire dispatch system for Okanagan Similkameen RD.
That conclusion re-stated to a large gathering in Penticton Saturday that included fire chiefs, municipal managers, regional politicians, staff and media.
Fire Chiefs from Ellison, Hedley, Anarchist Mountain, Tulameen, Summerland, Osoyoos and Oliver attended to hear a 4 hour outline of just how the present fire dispatch infrastructure will change in the next three years and what improvements are needed to make it all work.
Politicians stated the cost of a Telus phone-land-line system would be prohibitive and that the new recommended system will be controlled by the RDOS and financed over a long period of time keeping the cost down. RDOS Director Michael Brydon said that the RDOS directors wanted to know the alternatives/costs and all of those have now been reviewed with the radio based system the best of the systems presented.
How would this system work?
Fire Dispatch in Kelowna would broadcast a signal to Okanagan Mountain that would be received in Summerland, Penticton, Kobau Mtn. and Apex Mtn. with signals from the latter two towers going to 12 smaller fire departments in the region including Willowbrook, Kaleden, Keremeos and Princeton. Dedicated land lines for Summerland and Penticton would be eliminated under the plan.
A back up system will be designed using telephone systems but is not expected to be utilized often once all mountain top equipment is upgraded and tuned. Each tower system will be designed with emergency power and warning system if that power feed goes down.
Main concern of fire chiefs is local tactical radio communication in their areas saying that a “simplex” line of site system is not good enough and some repeater action is needed for all signals to work properly. Many different radio channels will be possible for local communication but the drawback of the present system will be eliminated.
That problem – overlap. More than one fire department will be able to be dispatched without confusion or interference of signals.
Need for Change
RDOS wanted to review the fire radio and paging systems to ensure compliance with current standards and reduce the reliance on dial-up connections as a primary radio link.
The new system will also allow an Emergency Operations Centre in Penticton to operate at one time to control and communicate to all fire departments in the RDOS if such is needed.
