Telephone firebar

[Buffboy]

Among my many "jobs" I'm board chairman of our rural volunteer fire district. The communications thread in ask a cop got me to think of asking this. Up until the phone company upgraded to all fiber optic lines we had a fire department phone number that when called would ring up to 12 phone numbers. Everyone that picked up could hear what was being said. This was called a firebar. After the upgrade the old unit the phone company used to do this was obsolete and incompatible the new system. Our current system of notifying firemen of a fire involves a chase program that calls 6 phones until it reaches someone that knows how to respond and will only let that person talk to or hear the callout. It is also only usable with hard lines. That person is responsible for getting the word out to the rest of us scattered throughout the county, usually by cell. The phone company has found a replacement for the old system but it's $25k for the unit + operating costs and way out of our price range. The FD runs about $5k@year budget plus scattered grants.

I'm wondering if anyone here has had the same problem and how did you solve it?

My thought is something that would automatically conference call several FD personnel's personal cell phones. Everyone carries a cell phone now. We've tried pagers and portable radios but they inevitably get left in the pickup, at home, to die alone in a muddy(sometimes it's not mud truly ) field somewhere or destroyed in other ways with the farmers & ranchers that are our department.

[MikeG]

What system does the chase call? Some systems have a "group call" that calls everyone in a group and connects them in a large conference call.

Is the 25k one the XOP Firebar system? I have no idea on cost
Here is a few replacements
Ringdown Firebar Conference Server
http://www.forum-com.com/marketing/Public_Safety.ppt
Web Portal, APMAX, IMS Application Server, Innovative Systems

You might find that some phone companies can do it too. Not sure this is the same thing. This service from Verizon seems to call everyone on a list into a conference call. Also it seems to have the capability to ring multiple number simultaneously for the same user and if any pickup up, it stops ringing. It also supports text messaging to the group.

Answers to FAQs for group communication

[Buffboy]

Thanks Mike, that gives me some reading and people to call. We've got the emergency manager looking for something too. We've got a little grant money to spend and the phone company has offered to kick in a bit too but a $20k+ ticket is not in the cards.

Our biggest problem is we are spread out so much and there is no larger town in the district to pull initial response people from(county seat population: 24). Heck we have one whole township(36 sq/miles) with no residents. We cover over 5 townships plus respond to structure on the Rez (6 more townships, their grassland company isn't supposed to fight structure due to regulations).

The chase program is offered by the phone company to find a person that is being called. It is set up permanent on our old fire bar number. I don't remember what they call the service but was the only thing they could offer that could come close to a regular firebar with the system they now have. After using that a year, it works, sort of, but is not even close to ideal.


We are looking into a service system that will call multiple numbers and play a recorded message, that costs $600 a year, but that still leaves whoever gets the call to activate it. If the 911 call goes to our dispatch(hard lines do) that should work but cell 911 can wind up going anywhere, even out of state and that is now the majority of 911 calls.

What would really be good is having the old firebar to call our cell phones but I'm afraid anything that will work with the phone company's new system is going to cost too much. As an added bonus, given that tech is changing so fast, will it still work 5-10 years down the road?