• Every day, approximately 650 calls, made to 18, 112 or other emergency numbers in the department, are received at the emergency call processing center of the Ille-et-Vilaine fire brigade in Rennes.

  • It is from this nerve center that all emergency interventions are triggered.

    "But only one call in five leads to an intervention", underlines Eric Candas, departmental director of Sdis 35.

Calm and focus.

These are the watchwords at the emergency call processing center for firefighters in Rennes.

Installed for a few days on the site of the departmental fire and rescue department of Ille-et-Vilaine (Sdis 35), along avenue François-Château, this nerve center receives reception 24 hours a day, 7 days out of 7 all calls made to 18, 112 or other emergency numbers in the department.

Each year in Ille-et-Vilaine, nearly 200,000 requests for help have to be taken care of, with an average of 650 calls per day.

“But only one call in five leads to an intervention, underlines Eric Candas, departmental director of Sdis 35. This remains an emergency number and we only trigger resources when there is an emergency.

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“React quickly while remaining calm”

Wearing headphones and staring at four screens at the same time, around fifteen firefighters take turns day and night to handle emergency calls of all kinds.

"Many prefer to be in the field, but it's a very rewarding position," says Sergeant Florian Cosnay.

It's quite stressful too because you have to be able to react quickly when there's an emergency while keeping calm.

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This Thursday morning, the morning is also rather calm with only seven common interventions to report.

"But there can sometimes be twenty or thirty at the same time, which requires being well coordinated", testifies the head of the room.

Because it is indeed the operators, with the support of software, who trigger the rescue.

“We have to judge very quickly whether it is serious or not and decide on the means and equipment that must be mobilized for the intervention”, underlines Commander Sébastien Lacoste, head of the emergency call processing center.

Each intervention monitored in real time

Once the device is activated, each operator then follows the progress of the rescue operation in real time on a screen using a color code.

"The intervention does not end for us until the teams have returned to their barracks", indicates an operator.


But no time to breathe that a new call has already been intercepted.

"Firefighters, I listen", replies the operator.

Such is life at the emergency call center where the fire brigade is always on hand.

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