Communications Division

The Communications Division of the department is responsible for maintaining all radio equipment.   The division maintains 112 individual radios consisting of six base station radios, seveteen mobile radios, forty-nine portable radios and forty pagers.  The department tries to make sure that communications equipment is up to the latest standards and is fully interoperable with other agencies.

The municipal fire alarm system which was in service for many many years was officially decomissioned in 2018.  It incorporated several miles of cable on the utility poles and during its peak incorporated hundreds of master and street boxes on two separate circuits. The system was operated with Gamewell equipment which has proven its reliability for over a hundred years. The first telegraph fire alarm system was developed by William Francis Channing and Moses G. Farmer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852. The system is bascially a telegraph system which sends a coded signal to the station which allows firefigthers to determine the location of the fire based upon the coded signal.  Before telephones or two-way radio, officers could go to a street box and ask for additional resources or report the fire out using the telegraph key in the box.  As cell phone technology came of age, most emergency calls come to the dispatch center via cell phones now so all of the street boxes were removed from the system.  Concurrently, with the advances with building premise alarm system technology, the transmission of a fire alarm signal from within a commercial property is now accomplished with digital telephone technolgy which resulted in the removal of all of the master boxes on the system.  

The department is also using digital technology to keep firefighters informed and ready to respond.  Utilizing the internet all members are connected to an electronic status board which reports current status of apparatus and the response status of other members.  This technology helps incident commanders make better decisions regarding allocation of manpower.  Individual member response as well as apparatus locations can be viewed graphically on an electronic map on each member's smart phone.  This type of connectivity creates an instantaneous common operating picture for department members. The Communications Division is responsible for maintaining this new notification system.