To the Editor:
The Peachland fire this week had me thinking about the fire dispatch situation again. I wonder how many folks really know just how the radio signal gets from Kelowna to all the cities and towns in the RDOS.
Before, when it was based in Penticton, it was a direct UHF (Ultra High Frequency) radio signal from Penticton; simple and effective. That went to some of the local departments, (ie: P.I.B., Kaleden, Okanagan Falls,) directly and then out on their usual VHF (Very High Frequency) radio systems.
For others such as Oliver, Osoyoos, Anarchist Mountain, Willowbrook, Naramata, Keremeos, Hedley, Princeton and Tulameen, that same signal went to Mount Kobau and was retransmitted to Beaconsfield Mountain. This pretty well covered most of the departments, other than Summerland and Penticton, which were direct on VHF
Now, with the move to Kelowna, that signal travels on a Shaw Internet cable down to Penticton, where it ties into the appropriate VHF or UHF radios to do that same job as was done before; but now with one more possible point of failure - the internet.
This leads me back to the start of my letter and the Peachland fire. Had that fire burned down to the Highway (and I believe it was close), that internet line could’ve easily been burnt up and all two-way communications to all departments in the entire RDOS would be cut. This is assuming that the Shaw lines run along Highway 97 and to the best of my knowledge, they do. This might have also taken out all the telephone circuits and Shaw phones.
Even a serious MVA could do the same, if it involved those delicate lines. Kelowna has said that they have backup systems in place, should those lines fail (and they have failed; I’ve witnessed several outages personally). They claim to have telephone paging ability (useless if the lines are down or overloaded), plus that is only a 20 second paging system and only works one way.
They also say that they could use Satellite phone; possibly, but only if the affected areas still have landline phones in place. If every department had a satellite phone, that would be different but I know of none in the RDOS that presently do. It’s my opinion (and I’ve been involved in radio for over 30 years) that the only safe and reliable way to fix the problem is to build a proper radio system from Kelowna to at least Penticton and then branch outward. The sites are there; it just costs money (though renting dedicated internet lines isn’t cheap either and are not 100 per cent reliable). I know that there is presently a $50,000 study by the RDOS going on, to look at the radio systems in depth and that is good; however perhaps it wouldve been smarter to do that before the dispatch bid was put out?
What will an upgrade cost? Kelowna did an upgrade a few years ago and I believe it was close to $750,000 and our regional district is larger than theirs. Regarding the new contract, the RDOS and the fire departments should have stipulated that whoever got it must at least the levels of service and reliability that we had when Penticton was dispatching. Had that been the case, any department who was bidding would then have a very tough time putting in a bid as low as the one made.
Just who failed to insist on keeping up those levels, I am not certain of. What was asked of the new provider was very different than what used to be delivered; that is obvious. Penticton dispatch also had several VHF radios and a UHF backup radio should the links ever fail; not quite 100 per cent failsafe but very close. Kelowna has no backup radios; period. Nor do they have the ability to change channels as Penticton could. Penticton was really the biggest loser in the move, not only because of manpower but also flexibilty of radio channels. The main way of paging off-duty Penticton fire fighters was lost as Kelowna now only monitors one radio channel for Penticton; the one that used to be utilized for paging was dropped. Now they rely solely on an internet based paging system that calls landline and cellphones.
During the Peachland fire, I believe there were times that the cells were at the point of overload; making calls in or out could become impossible. This can be the case during any major disaster. To rely on cell phones, even as a backup is recipe for disaster. Another emergency repeater channel and several city channels were also not taken on by Kelowna, and the monitoring of the marine emergency channel 16 was dropped.
Penticton has had trouble with radio coverage in large steel and concrete buildings, so a digital channel was adopted a few years back and new radios were purchased. Should the crews get into situations where normal analog radio communications were not copyable, they could switch to digital and in most cases they were now fully understood by dispatch.
Again, Kelowna presently has no such ability to use such a channel or switch to one. This was all possible and was done in past; but due to the obviously simplistic requests in the RFP, only basic dispatching was taken on.
I’ve heard a couple of comments over the past year that this would be a “Seamless” transition and levels of service would stay the same. This has not been the case at all and I know that many people share my opinion. Kelowna is not to blame; they are doing what was asked of them; unfortunately that wasn’t very much. Penticton also did thousands of manchecks with RDOS and city staff working alone; (a Worksafe requirement) and this was done both by radio and phone. This service (phone only) was contacted out to a private company in Vernon..and at what cost? Burning permit reporting was watered down to an answering machine/honor system, whereas before a dispatcher would deal with every phone call regarding burning permits, personally. I won’t even get into the local knowledge issues, comparing Penticton to Kelowna; that again is fairly obvious. It takes years to get to know the areas and Penticton did a pretty good job of it, if you ask me. If you compare what we had before to what is now, it really is apples and oranges and proof positive that you really do “get what you pay for”.
Cutting costs is fine as long as service and especially an emergency service isn’t sacrificed. Its odd that the government is always preaching that the public should be prepared with three days supplies, should a disaster strike. In regards to the above, are they really ready themselves?
Allan C.L. Stark, Penticton