You should only dial 999 or 112 in an emergency.

To call the Fire and Rescue Service in an emergency, use the nearest telephone and dial 999 or the European number which is 112.  The European number will work across the UK and Europe, but 999 will only work in the UK.

Stay calm and speak clearly.

The first person that you will speak to will be the telephone company operator, they will ask you which emergency service you require.

• Ask for the fire service.

You will then hear a dialling tone as the operator connects you to the nearest fire service control room.  The operator will then give the telephone number that you are calling from to the fire control operator, so that you can be re-contacted if required.

The fire control operator will now ask you for details of the emergency, such as;

• What the emergency is

• Where the emergency is

• The nearest town

• Any landmarks that will assist the fire crews in finding the incident

• Whether anyone is in immediate danger

If you telephone the fire service, genuinely thinking that there is an emergency, but the call turns out to be a false alarm, you will NOT be charged for calling us.

Once you have given all of the details to the fire service, the fire control operator will use the latest computer technology to determine which fire stations need to be mobilised, how many fire appliances are required and the type of appliances required, for example turntable ladders, water carriers, or chemical equipment etc..

This is the reason that the information that you give must be as accurate as possible.

Within seconds of you calling, the information will be sent via a high speed telephone line to a printer at the fire station and station alarms and firefighters pagers will sound.

Firefighters will immediately respond.  Firefighters based on wholetime stations will immediately get changed into firekit and proceed to the incident.  Retained firefighters will immediately respond to the fire station, get changed into firekit and proceed to the incident.

If you are in any danger, fire control may stay on the line, and give you advice.

If you do hang up, and we need more information, fire control may telephone you back, so that they can pass on the information to us; - If you have made a call on a mobile phone, please leave it switched on.

It is a criminal offence to make a hoax call to the emergency services. Your call can be traced immediately, and mobile phones can be cut off.  Hoax calls cost lives and are taken very seriously.

Retained Firefighters Pagers.

Retained firefighters in Hereford and Worcester will carry one of 5 models of pager, known as "Alerters."

The oldest type, which is virtually phased out, is the MAL Firefighters Alerter, it is a basic alerter, with two different tones, a "fire" tone (three cycles of eight long bleeps), and a "test" tone (four cycles of three short bleeps followed by a long bleep.)  It also has a light on it that lights up red for fire and green for test.

The next model is the NEC alerter.  It is of the same design as the latest datanet, except that it has an LCD display which displays "tone only" when a signal is received.  The fire tone is similar to the MAL, while the test signal is eight "pips".

The next alerter is the MAL Courier, (pictured) which appears more like a conventional pager with a screen, and three buttons for scrolling through messages.  The fire tone is a continuous set of long bleeps.  The test tone is a continuous set of three short bleeps followed by a long bleep. "Fire Fire Fire" is displayed for a firecall, and Test is displayed for a test. There are very few of these in use.

Then we have the Scope "Geo Pulser", a small pager with numeric display.  It displays "Fire" for firecalls and "Test" for a test.  The fire signal is a continuous two-tone sound with continuous vibrate, and the test call is eight cycles of four "pips" with a pulsing vibrate.

Finally, the newest alerter is the Datanet 2A.  When a firecall is received, three red lights show and the alerter emits a continuous set of long bleeps and vibrates continuously.  A test signal is a set of fast "pips" with a green light, again with a continuous vibrate.

The alerters are tested by fire control every day at 6.05pm.