By Christine Hauser
New York Times

NEW YORK — A pilot program for Fire Department dispatchers in Queens was so successful in improving response times that it will be extended across the city next month, the department said on Tuesday.

Under the program, which started on Feb. 14, dispatchers were trained to spend less time on the phone confirming the location and nature of the emergency in order to expedite getting units to the scene.

The program requires dispatchers to continue to obtain information — including the cross street and a contact number from the person or persons calling in the emergency — while the fire units are en route, the department said in a statement. The responding units are then given radio updates in their trucks.

Under the previous system, the additional questions had to be asked before dispatchers could assign units to an emergency, the department said.

The program has been criticized by union officials, who have said that the department needed more trucks and personnel, not new rules for its dispatchers.

John J. McDonnell, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said the program could result in units being sent out with too little information. “The more information that the unit has before they go out the door prepares them for the emergency that they are going to be faced with,” he said.

The department has said that the program’s goal was to improve citywide response times to fires, and the commissioner believes the program does that.

“This simple change of protocol has resulted in one of the most significant drops in response times in F.D.N.Y. history,” Nicholas Scoppetta, the fire commissioner, said.

The average response times to structural fires in Queens have improved by 30 seconds between Feb. 14 and April 26, compared with the same period in 2007, the department said. The average response to 15,000 overall emergencies in Queens dropped to 4 minutes 56 seconds from 5 minutes 16 seconds.

Training for dispatchers in the remaining four boroughs is under way. The program will begin in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island on June 1, but introducing it in Manhattan might take longer because of its high number of automatic alarms, which require different procedures.

Copyright 2008 New York Times