The City of Campbell River is celebrating National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week from April 14 to 20, 2024. Celebrated annually, this week honours 9-1-1 operators and dispatchers from police, fire and medical services for their commitment to public safety. 

Each year, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International sponsors National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week to recognize the thousands of people who take calls and dispatch emergency professionals and equipment to people worldwide.

“As the first point of contact when an emergency call comes in, public safety telecommunicators play a vital role in community safety. They make that initial connection with the caller, gather important information for first responders, dispatch emergency services and monitor the situation until help arrives,” says Assistant Chief Stephanie Bremer. “In Campbell River, dispatchers work alongside a team of career and paid-on-call firefighters to provide essential service to Campbell River and other communities. The City of Campbell River is proud to recognize our dispatchers for their expertise, professionalism and dedication to upholding our fire department’s commitment to public safety.”

Campbell River provides fire dispatch services to 81 fire departments in eight regional districts under contract with the North Island 9-1-1 Corporation. The Fire Dispatch Centre, located in the No. 1 Fire Station downtown, serves an estimated 310,000 residents across more than 180,000 square kilometres, in an area spanning central to north Vancouver Island, qathet Region and the Peace River Region. It is staffed 24 hours a day with no less than two professional public safety telecommunicators. The centre handled more than 47,000 total incidents in 2023, including dispatching over 25,000 incidents – an increase of 24 per cent over the year before.

Help keep the lines clear by preventing accidental 9-1-1 calls.

Accidental 9-1-1 calls and non-emergency calls to 9-1-1 divert resources from genuine emergencies and put people’s lives at risk. Please follow these guidelines to prevent accidental calls to 9-1-1:

• Don’t hang up when calling 9-1-1. If you called by mistake, let the operator know.
• Lock and store your cell phone carefully to avoid accidentally calling 9-1-1.
• Don’t program 9-1-1 into any telephone.
• Never give phones to children to play with.

9-1-1 is for police, fire and medical emergencies only. Non-emergency calls should be directed to non-emergency phone numbers.

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 Contact: Stephanie Bremer, Assistant Chief | 250-286-6266 |stephanie.bremer@campbellriver.ca