Litchfield County (CT) Dispatching

Litchfield County Dispatch (LCD)

Change of crews

• Dispatchers work 12 hour shifts from 6 am to 6pm and from 6pm to 6am. Overtime to a regular work shift is 18 hours unless working on an off day. There are 16 dispatchers with 4 working per shift. There are two assigned to Torrington PD and two assigned to LCD Fire. One on each end acts as a calltaker. Work schedule follows this format for a two week schedule and repeats over.
  • Monday and Tuesday (34,39,46,48) (27,30,32,40)
  • Wednesday and Thursday (28,43,45,47) (22,23,42,44)
  • Friday, Saturday, Sunday (34,39,46,48) (27,30,32,40)
  • Monday and Tuesday (28,43,45,47) (22,23,42,44)
  • Wednesday and Thursday (34,39,46,48) (27,30,32,40)
  • Friday, Saturday, Sunday (28,43,45,47) (22,23,42,44)

• New EFD Protocol 77 is now used for all motor vehicle accidents. Here is the list.

  77O1 - Vehicle blocking traffic
  77O2 - No injuries and no hazard
  77A1 - Low Mechanism
  77A2 - No injuries with hazard
  77B1 - Injuries
  77B2 - Unknown Situation
  77C1 - Hazards with injuries
  77C2 - Fuel/Fluid leak
  77D1 - High Occupancy Vehicle
  77D2 - High Mechanism
  77D3 - Multiple Vehicle pile-up
  77D4 - Pinned / Trapped Victim
  77D5 - Ejection
  77D6 - Vehicle vs pedestrian/bike
  77D7 - Vehicle vs. Building
  77D8 - Unstable vehicle
  77D9 - Commercial Vehicle

• All departments add their ambulance to the dispatch for all structure fires.

• The following departments add their ambulance for CO Alarms and potential hazard calls (ex. gas leak, car fire, outside fire, chimney fires)
  • Bridgewater Fire
  • Cornwall Fire
  • Goshen Fire
  • Harwinton Fire
  • Lakeville Fire
  • Norfolk Fire
  • Sharon Fire
  • Sherman Fire
  • Falls Village Fire

• Northfield fire calls between 0600 and 1800 7 days a week adds East Litchfield Fire with the exception of service calls.

• East Litchfield fire calls between 0600 and 1800 7 days a week adds Northfield Fire with the exception of service calls.

• Litchfield fire calls between 0600 and 1800 7 days a week adds Bantam Fire with the exception of service calls.

• Bantam fire calls between 0600 and 1800 7 days a week adds Litchfield Fire with the exception of service calls.

• Nepaug non fire calls (CO, MVA, calls formerly known as signal 23) between 0600 and 1800 mon-fri adds New Hartford Fire except service calls.

• Nepaug fire calls between 0600 and 1800 mon-fri adds New Hartford Fire and Pine Meadow Fire except service calls. Nepaug structure fires 24/7 add New Hartford and Pine Meadow automatically as well as New Hartford Ambulance

• New Hartford fire calls between 0600 and 1800 mon-fri adds Nepaug Fire with the assignment except service calls.

• New Hartford rescue calls mon-fri 0600-1800 adds Nepaug and Pleasant Valley fire

• Pleasant Valley adds Barkhamsted East Fire and Riverton Fire for all calls 7 days a week from 0600-1800. All calls between 1800-0600 are a single company response including fire alarms and chimney fires with the exception of high life hazard buildings. Active structure calls 24/7 adds Barkhamsted East, Riverton, Colebrook and West Hartland. From 0600-1800 Mon-Fri, the Barkhamsted Townwide tone gets used no matter who gets dispatched.

• Barkhamsted East fire calls between 0600-1800 mon-fri adds Pleasant Valley Fire and East Hartland Fire except service calls. Pleasant Valley Fire responds 24/7 for rescue calls.

• Riverton fire calls between 0600-1800 mon-fri adds Pleasant Valley Fire, Barkhamsted East Fire, Colebrook Fire, West Hartland Fire except service calls.

• Colebrook fire calls between 0600-1800 mon-fri adds Riverton Fire, Pleasant Valley Fire, West Hartland Fire except motor vehicle accidents and service calls. Colebrook 1st responders are dispatched on all fire calls.

• West Hartland fire calls 24/7 adds East Hartland Fire except service calls. Colebrook, Riverton and Pleasant Valley are added Mon-Fri between 0600-1800 for active structure calls.

• East Hartland fire calls 24/7 adds West Hartland Fire except service calls. Barkhamsted East Fire is added mon-fri 0600-1800.

• Falls Village Ambulance is dispatched to all Falls Village fire calls.

• Warren Ambulance is dispatched to all Warren fire calls.

• Bantam Ambulance is dispatched to all Bantam fire calls.

• All Litchfield Ambulance calls in Northfield's district adds Northfield 1st responders.

• All structure fires in Litchfield have the Torrington RIT team dispatched.

• All structure fires in Norfolk and North Canaan have the Norfolk RIT team dispatched.

• North Canaan Medic gets dispatched to all ambulance calls in North Canaan no matter the response level.

• When any ambulance is out of service or is on a 1st call where there isn't another unit in that agency's fleet, ambulance first responders get toned out along with mutual aid ambulance.

• When Sharon Ambulance is unavailable, ambulance 1st responders along with Sharon Fire Rescue 1 responds.

• When Norfolk Ambulance is unavailable, ambulance 1st responders along with Norfolk Fire Utility 50 responds.

• All fire and medical calls on the Route 7 corridor in Sharon are handled by Cornwall.

• Northern Dutchess Medics are backup paramedic providers for Kent, Warren and North Canaan.

• All LCD channels are simplex. LCD broadcast and receives from 16 transmitter sites located throughout the county interconnected by the State Police microwave system. Because of this you can hear the dispatchers clearly throughout the county, but can rarely hear units more than a town or 2 away.

• As of 2010 LCD no longer uses radio codes and is strictly "plain English".

Channels

Dispatch 1

• Dispatching.
• Quick Call 2 Tone Activations.
• DTMF Knox Box Activations.
• Unit responding to station or scene.
• First unit on scene.
• Apparatus on the air.
• Apparatus responding.
• Apparatus on scene.

Command 2

• Not currently in use. Intended to be a repeater version of Command 3.

Command 3

• Ambulance enroute to hospital.
• Ambulance at hospital.
• Clear of incident.
• Incident closed.
• Other messages to LCD.

Scene 4-12

• Scene 4 - Barkhamsted, Kent, Lakeville
• Scene 5 - New Hartford, North Canaan
• Scene 6 - Falls Village, Harwinton
• Scene 7 - Litchfield, Norfolk
• Scene 8 - Colebrook, Warren
• Scene 9 - Hartland, Washington
• Scene 10- Cornwall, Sherman
• Scene 11- Goshen, Morris
• Scene 12- Bridgewater, Sharon

Traffic 13

• Fire Police

Airtac 14

• Helicopter (Life Star) coordination

Interops 15

• Interagency Channel

Admin

• LCD Staff Members

Intra County

• Used only during emergencies when Dispatch 1 is not working.
• CMED

• Med 2 - Sharon Hospital
• Med 3 - Charlotte Hungerford Hospital
• Med 4 - New Milford Hospital
• Med 5 - St. Mary's Hospital
• Med 6 - Waterbury Hospital
• Med 7 - Winsted Health Center
• Med 9 - Northwest C-Med Dispatch
• Med 10 - Danbury Hospital

• Ambulances communicating with hospital (incoming patients and medical control)
• Ambulances communicating with Medic for line of sight intercepts