Fullerton Fire Department - Response and Mutual Aid

Response and Mutual Aid

The Fullerton Fire Department is dispatched by Metronet, a regional dispatch facility located in Orange, California. The facility is responsible for dispatching fire personnel in several cities throughout Orange County (Anaheim, Brea, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Orange, Huntington Beach, and Newport Beach). Calls placed to 9-1-1 in Fullerton are answered by dispatchers at the Fullerton Police Department; fire and paramedic requests are then transferred to Metronet.

The Fullerton Fire Department also is part of the Orange County 800 MHz Countywide Coordinated Communications System. This system provides radio communications to law enforcement, fire services, public works departments, lifeguard, and marine safety services throughout the county. This system facilitates interoperability between units from different agencies, and makes possible a virtually seamless mutual aid system throughout the county.

The Fullerton Fire Department is part of the county-wide automatic mutual aid system, which ensures that the nearest available fire and paramedic units are dispatched to a call regardless of the location. Fire departments throughout the county, including Fullerton, employ the incident command system routinely to coordinate resources during significant events. The automatic mutual aid system is used to dispatch resources from Fullerton and surrounding jurisdictions as needed in the event of a multiple alarm fire or other major emergency within the city. The automatic mutual aid system also is used to dispatch resources to incidents within the city when Fullerton units are unavailable owing to prior assignments, or for incidents occurring near the city limits in cases where the unit(s) from another jurisdiction can respond more quickly.