By having trained firefighters rather than civilians answering calls, operators can provide immediate, time-critical advice and information on emergency situations, which may mean the difference between life and death. The conditions under which these firefighters function can be extremely stressful. They often have to extract crucial information over the phone from people who are involved in or have witnessed difficult events.

Communications centre firefighters are also able to directly assign the appropriate resources to an incident, based on their knowledge and experience. With a wide range of different firefighting equipment available, from rescue, aerial and hazmat appliances, to foam and carbon dioxide bulk carriers, to 4WD tankers and Urban Search and Rescue trucks, communications operators decide which appliances to turn out to each specific incident.

The recent bushfire period has been one of the busiest in history for firefighters both on the ground and at Newcastle communications centre. Since November 1, Fire and Rescue NSW communication centre firefighters have answered 19767 Triple O calls, and responded 13330 firefighting appliances to over 8175 incidents within NSW.

Additionally, with the amount of smoke in the atmosphere, firefighters have responded to triple the normal number of activation of automatic smoke alarms.