Mobile fire command centre for city

Co-ordinator of major fire incidents in the south will no longer be done from the front of a fire truck, with the addition of a new appliance to the Invercargill fleet.

Fire Service Southland assistant area manager Julian Tohiariki compared the latest appliance at the Invercargill fire station to the technology used in the television show Thunderbirds.

The $650,000 DAF hazmat/command unit harnesses the latest in technology – making it a fire station on wheels, he said.

It was the third of its kind in the country, with 18 to be rolled out nationally.

The vehicle is fully self-sufficient and can be used at any incident in the southern fire district.

A mast-mounted 70-times optical zoom camera that could be raised up to 9m was a key feature because it allowed an emergency situation to be monitored safely from a distance. Objects could be clearly seen more than seven blocks away.

The camera's controls, along with other communications equipment and computers, are housed in an office inside the vehicle, while there was an open area off the office designed to carry steel "pods" that carried key firefighting equipment, he said.

"It's kind of like a Thunderbirds thing, you roll on what you want or need."

Invercargill station officer Deane Chalmers and self-confessed "techie" said he was one of four officers tasked with training colleagues in using the vehicle.

Three mobile phone connections – two through Telecom and one through Vodafone – were backed up by a satellite dish mounted on the roof of the cab, he said.

A plasma screen mounted on the outside allowed for briefings to be held outside the vehicle and was connected to internal communications systems as well as the internet, he said.

The plasma screen inside the truck uses a series of lasers, meaning the screen became touch-controlled when a finger interrupted the beam.

Radio communication was also hi-tech and the appliance had the ability to link different frequencies into the same channel and was even able to set off the alarms at any fire station nationally, he said.

Training in how to use the vehicle is expected to take several weeks.

jared.morgan@stl.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News

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