During an emergency response to Matteson Road on Feb. 3, Potterville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Robert Greenway said he feared the worst when he received the emergency signal from dispatch designating a “man-down” situation from inside a burning two-story home.
The seriousness of the “life-safety” situation was doubled by the fact that while Greenway stood outside the blazing home, he couldn’t radio to his men inside. In an all-too common scenario for the Scituate Fire Department, Greenway and his crews were in a communication “dead zone.”
Greenway explained that the town fire department’s communication system works on a repeater, first sending messages to the system at the Chopmist Hill Fire Department and then transmitting the message. Though crews could be as close as 20 feet, he said, hills, valleys, and other geographic features often block the signal back to CHFD.
In the Matteson Road fire, an inside firefighter accidentally hit the “man-down” button on his radio. Greenway said the outcome was fortunate, but the situation is troubling, and he worries about the firefighters inside burning structures.