National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week
Montecito Fire Protection District would like to acknowledge and thank its dispatchers for their dedication, hard work, and expert skills. “They truly are heroes who provided extraordinary service during the Thomas Fire and January 9 debris flow events,” said MFPD rep Jackie Jenkins.
The Montecito Fire Communications Division (South Coast Dispatch) serves the community with the highest degree of professionalism and strives to render the highest level of service. The division is staffed with three full-time Public Safety Dispatchers who are responsible for the receipt, documentation, and disposition of telephonic and radio calls for routine and emergency “9-1-1” situations for both the Montecito and Carpinteria-Summerland Fire districts.
The Dispatch Center is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. It is the responsibility of the Public Safety dispatcher to identify the nature of a call as quickly as possible and assist the caller in solving the problem. The dispatcher is the critical link between the citizen and the firefighters, as they are responsible for obtaining information from the caller and transferring that information to the firefighters and emergency personnel. Because each incoming call is unique and can vary from requests for general information to reports of life-threatening incidents, the dispatcher must ask specific questions to accurately prioritize the call and assign it appropriately to emergency responders. The faster this critical information is obtained determines how quickly firefighters are able to respond.
“Montecito Fire Protection District is extremely proud of our dispatchers and recognize the daily sacrifices they make to provide excellent service to the communities they serve,” Jenkins said.
