St. Albert first responders will soon be better equipped to deal with disasters and emergency situations.
The NDP government announced that the province-wide radio communication system known as AFRRCS (Alberta First Responder Radio Communication System), will be officially coming online July 1.
The $438 million-project has been in the works for the past eight years. It is meant to improve radio coverage and interoperability between jurisdictions across Alberta.
Before AFRRCS police, emergency medical and fire services in Alberta used standalone radio systems that generally do not communicate with one another. AFFRCS will link all first responders, as well as government departments –improving the co-ordination of crisis events and other emergency situations.
All 112 Alberta RCMP detachments will transition on to the AFRRCS network, along with Alberta Health Services (and all EMS units) and all Alberta Justice and Solicitor General operations, such as sheriffs, fish and wildlife enforcement branch and corrections.
St. Albert has $47,000 set aside, which will allow for limited connectivity to the system by fire services.
There is no cost to connect to the AFRRCS network, but municipalities are responsible for outfitting fire and other departments with portable radios. Each radio costs between $1,200 and $7,000, depending on the make and model.
Acting city manager Chris Jardine said that administration would be looking into the “merit, benefit and ability” of migrating more city operations to the AFRRCS system, but that the review is not pressing.
The city established a corporate radio system in 2009, which connected St. Albert’s ambulance, fire transit and public works departments.
Fire services will maintain use of the current system as a way to communicate with other municipal departments, while equipping each front line unit with an AFRRCS radio to allow for communication with other first responders.
The new system will allow for better communication between mutual aid partners, such as Edmonton, which is one of the municipalities listed as in discussion with AFRRCS.
Municipalities work on separate radio systems. Currently, when mutual aid partners are called to assist, St. Albert fire services physically hands out extra portable radios to ensure communication with personnel from other jurisdictions.
“You’re already operating on the same communication platform,” said Percy Janke, deputy chief of administration and planning for St. Albert fire services.
AFRRCS proved its worth during the response to the wildfire crisis in Fort McMurray last month.
The province deployed one of two Site On Wheels (SOWs) to the fire-ravaged town on Tuesday May 3 – the day 80,000 residents were forced to flee their homes under a mandatory evacuation order.
The SOW had a cache of 150 portable radios. Not only did these radios allow front line staff from 32 different fire departments to communicate with the command centre, they allowed 911 dispatch to continue to field calls from the back of a moving vehicle while the command centre was relocated away from the fire, said Fort McMurray Deputy Fire Chief Brad Grainger.
AFRRCS was also necessary given the fire severely damaged the Rogers tower and cause the entire communications network to go down. For two hours firefighters had to use their cellphones to communicate with dispatch.
Although it was not needed – the provincial network of 332 towers was already online for pilot testing – the SOW can also work as a back up tower with four different channels that can be accessed via satellite link.
“There’s definitely some good forethought in the system,” said Janke, who also served as a member of the implementation and standards committee for AFRRCS.
He said his staff was impressed with the quality of communication afforded by the digital AFRRCS system.
“Digital systems tend to have very crystal clear qualities on their radio transmissions and this was no exception,” said Janke.
