Communications Center/Alarm Room

The Albuquerque Fire Department Communications center is responsible for processing all requests for emergency fire and medical assistance received through the 911 system, providing pre-arrival assistance to callers, and dispatching appropriate response units. The Communication center is also responsible for the management of the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) geographic file database.

The center is staffed with twenty-four emergency medical dispatchers (EMD) and emergency fire dispatchers (EFD), with five dispatchers and one EMD lieutenant assigned to one of four rotating work schedules - each an alternating schedule of two ten-hour day shifts and two fourteen-hour night shifts. The staffing is augmented by an EMD quality maintenance officer, an EFD quality maintenance officer, a geographic file custodian, and a Captain who is the program manager.

All personnel are nationally certified emergency medical dispatchers and undergo continuing education on the EMD and EFT systems, caller interrogation, EMS protocols, and additionally must maintain all AFD fire and EMT-B training and certification. In 2005, the communications center dispatched 67,145 responses to emergency situations, and handled an additional 235,000 non-emergency calls.

The Albuquerque Fire Department Communications Center was the first in the world to be named as an Emergency Medical Dispatch Center of Excellence by the National Academy of Emergency Medical Dispatch (NAEMD), and only the third in the nation to be certified as an EFD Center of Excellence.

Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD)

The CAD system provides department dispatchers with fire and EMS unit configuration recommendations, unit status, and incident tracking for all emergency incidents. Since its installation in 1985, the CAD system has proven to be a powerful tool in effectively managing department resources and emergency personnel. Various components of the system include on-board status message terminals (SMT) and the Zetron stations alerting system.

GIS Mapping Section

The CAD/Geofile custodian is responsible for all geographic data within the CAD system. Geographical information is currently based on data analysis sub-zones (DASZ) that provides the CAD system with routing and geographic configurations used to determine the appropriate dispatch of emergency equipment. Additionally, all AFD mapping of new city developement, along with the maintenance of current field or special-use maps, is provided by this section.