International Control Room Week: Essex Fire Control Room reflects on busy summer

To celebrate International Control Room Week, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service is looking back on the vital role Control Room teams played during this summer’s heatwave.

The summer of 2022 was the joint warmest on record in England and the driest since 1995.

It resulted in an incredibly busy two months for ECFRS – and none more so than for its Control Room teams.

In July and August, the team received nearly 6,000 calls each month. Almost double the calls they would usually receive in the summer.

It’s not just calls the team deal with, they also dispatch crews to incidents and move resources around the county to make sure all our areas are covered.

‘Camaraderie got us through’

Temporary Watch Manager Gill Lloyd, who has been in the Control Room for five years of a 23-year career, said: “The only thing I can compare it to is the Havant Thicket fires in Hampshire, going back 10 years or more. We had to use Green Goddesses for days on end and ran out of space on the incident board.

“It was like that this summer. It went on for so long that it became the norm – nothing surprised us after a week or so.

“When you’re getting ready for work, you hear what’s going and try to prepare yourself for it. What incidents are ongoing? How many crews have I got on? What sort of relief is going to be put in place?”

Gill said the team’s camaraderie got them through the summer. She added that the new Control recruits coped admirably too.

She said: “We work so well together, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Because you spend so much time with each other you get used to how each other think.”

‘I felt immense satisfaction’

Kim Stewart, Fire Control Operator, said she hasn’t experienced anything like it during her four years in the Control Room.

She said: “I’ve never seen it so manic; the phones were ringing constantly.

“I’ve never been so ramped up knowing it was going to be really busy. It was back-to-back, day after day.

“As much as you don’t want anyone to get hurt, you look forward to the challenge. I like it when it’s busy and we can all pull together.”

More than 80% of fires reported in July and August were outdoor fires.

Kim said: “It was a case of trying to reassure the public. We had people phone up and say a fire was coming towards them. All we could do was to reassure them our crews were at the scene: ‘even if you can’t see them, we are there.’

“It was good to speak to crews over the radio and see the officers in the Control Room and Critical Incident Team.

“At the end of the summer, I felt immense satisfaction. I felt proud of myself and the team.”

‘We were running on adrenaline’

Emma-Jane Hawkins, Fire Control Operator, joined the Control team two years ago.

She said: “When you were going in and the news was saying it’s 40 degrees, you have to emotionally prepare yourself for the fact you’re going to be answering calls for the entire shift.

“We were running on adrenaline; it was intense but keeping morale up was important. We checked in on each other and helped each other.

“I started during COVID, which was much quieter, so the summer felt like all the calls were coming in at once, it was like ‘what the hell is happening!'”

Emma-Jane became an on-call firefighter, at Manningtree Fire Station, earlier this year.

She said: “It’s really interesting hearing the radio from both sides and has given me a real understanding and appreciation of the challenges our crews and Control teams face.”