| On the evening of a July day, my engine was en route back to station. We called dispatch to let them know we were returning from patrol and couldn't get a hold of anyone through the radio. We called them on a cell phone and they informed us that they were responding to traffic because they were busy. We had no idea that they weren't going to be responding to any incoming traffic. This is not the first time this has happened either. This has happened on active fires, and the only way to get a hold of them was by getting our cell phones out and calling. This is not safe practices. Dispatch is there for US, not the other way around. We rely on them to get us more resources and to help with all fire suppression, and to not have them available and have to call on phone takes us out of the game. They also have new people who are un trained and dont know what theyre doing, this affects us by, showing our wrong locations, getting our call signs wrong and putting the wrong people in the engine. |
