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Humans are famously averse to change. We love our habits and rituals, and we instinctually balk whenever someone tries to deviate from them. However, when the changes come from updated professional standards, data analysis and research, and user feedback like the recent updates to the Fire Priority Dispatch System^™ (FPDS^®) in version 8, then changes should be celebrated!

Speaking of user feedback, a total of 210 Proposals for Change (PFCs) were submitted since the release of FPDS v7.1 in 2018. Of those, around 70% were rated a 4 or 5, which meant that they would result in the requested change appearing in the Protocol. That’s right—your feedback made a difference in how things are done and how the protocols function.

Additionally, the Fire Council of Standards has been working very closely with the Police Council of Standards and Medical Council of Standards to make the FPDS, Police Priority Dispatch System^™ (PPDS^®), and Medical Priority Dispatch System^™ (MPDS^®) as alike as possible to function better for our multi-discipline users. As part of that, an increased number of free-type text boxes are now available in FPDS ProQA^® in many of the Chief Complaints. Any Key Question with a colon after it will launch a free-type text box. This functionality is there to enhance communication between dispatch and the field responders who might not have the definition for a “Small Outside Fire” or know what constitutes a commercial or other type of building.

Many more Key Questions in the FPDS are now Jurisdictionally Approved Questions or JAQs. They’re highlighted in purple, and your center’s Fire Authority will decide whether or not the questions will be asked depending on your area’s information requirements and response capabilities.

We can’t possibly list every single change here, but this article will give you some good places to start.

Protocol 51: Aircraft Emergency
There are many crucial facts to know about an emergency involving an aircraft, not least of which is its location. There’s now an option on Protocol 51: Aircraft Emergency to specify if the incident involving an aircraft is occurring on or near airport property versus somewhere else, including in a remote area. Many times, the location will define the response and types of apparatus that will be needed. Additionally, an aircraft incident might not be a crash—there are now Key Questions to specify what kind of emergency it is. The caller party and their situation will also dictate which Key Questions you’ll see. For instance, if the caller is a first-party caller and they’re inside the airplane, you’ll ask questions that are different from the ones you would ask a third-party caller reporting a downed aircraft nearby.

There are also new options for terminating a call with someone from Air Traffic Control (ATC) as opposed to other callers.

Protocol 52: Alarms
As one of the most commonly used Chief Complaints, Protocol 52: Alarms was due for some streamlining. 

“We did a lot of surgery to make it more specific,” said Mike Thompson, Chair of the Fire Curriculum Council and IAED™ Fire Protocol, Academics, and Standards Expert.

For example, you’ll determine the building type first, then you’ll choose the alarm type from a list that is relevant to the building type. There are also new alarm types including explosive gas, radiological, baby box, and MULTIPLE ALARMS/MULTIPLE ZONES ACTIVATED.

Additionally, once a carbon monoxide alarm has been identified, there are only three Key Questions private callers are asked for that alarm type (“Is anyone sick?”, “Are there any people inside the building?”, and "Do you know where the alarm is coming from?") to further establish scene safety parameters.

There is a new connection between Protocol 61: HAZMAT and Protocol 52: Alarms. There is a new category on Protocol 61: HAZMAT for Carbon Monoxide investigations with initially no alarm. However, if you start on Protocol 61: HAZMAT and then the caller tells you a carbon monoxide alarm is going off, you will shunt to Protocol 52.

Protocol 53: Service Call
A particular update for Protocol 53 has been requested by many users! Now if a caller requests a Lift Assist, you can gather the patient’s weight range so that the firefighters respond with the correct apparatus and number of personnel. The local administrator/agency must define the weight ranges: "Weight range 'm'" and "Weight range 'n'".

“The goal is to move the patient without hurting them,” Thompson said. “Bariatric resources can come at different levels. Two people in an ambulance might not be able to lift or carry a 300-pound person and when you get above that, it may take special apparatus and additional personnel.”

As with other local definitions, your agency’s Fire Authority will decide which weight ranges go in each category, so be sure to check those as soon as they’re available.

Protocol 69: Structure Fire
Remember those definition changes and additions mentioned earlier? Those are especially important in the changes to Protocol 69: Structure Fire. Lists of building types in each Chief Complaint have been reconfigured so that the most common building types for that kind of call appear first. For Protocol 69: Structure Fire, this includes a crucial change to the HIGH LIFE HAZARD structure definition, which now includes “lack of fire suppression and alarm systems.” This will impact the scene safety for callers and bystanders as well as the safety of the responders. Other new answer choices include Mobile home/House trailer, Portable/Modular office, classroom, and BARN/AGRICULTURAL building.

This is also one of the protocols where you can use the free-type text box to specify for the responders exactly what “HIGH LIFE HAZARD” means in this case.

The ECHO and DELTA pathways on Protocol 69: Structure Fire are now more alike to give agencies the flexibility to respond as they see fit. This is part of the movement to give agencies more control over how they respond while still being compliant with the Protocol.

Protocol H: Medical Assessment and Treatment
This new stand-alone Pre-Arrival Protocol allows you to give medical treatment instructions over the phone just as you would in the MPDS. The questions regarding injury, illness, and other associated information are now asked earlier in the logic tree in ProQA. These questions are regarded with higher acuity, and positive results are dispatched earlier. There are also updates to the Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) definitions and recording of injury numbers: One, More than one (knows number), More than one (doesn’t know number), MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT (Level/Type I), MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT (Level/Type II), MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT (Level/Type III), MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT (Level/Type IV), MASS CASUALTY INCIDENT (Level/Type V), and Unknown.

For right now, there’s no direct software logic link from the injury/illness Key Questions and the medical treatment instructions, so you as the EFD will decide when it is and isn’t appropriate based on scene safety issues and the caller’s opportunity, desire, and means to assist.

You might notice that there still isn’t a link to CPR instructions in the FPDS. This is something the Fire Council of Standards has discussed a lot with the Police Council of Standards and the Medical Council of Standards. They’ve decided to leave it out of the Protocol for three reasons. The first is that with fire rescue incidents, there’s often a scene safety issue and any medical instructions given need to be the type that does not require the caller to be at the patient’s side for an extended period of time in the event the situation becomes dangerous. Second, a large number (not all) of patients that go into cardiac arrest in fire/rescue situations do so secondary to blunt force trauma, which is difficult to triage over the phone and is very often treated differently than medical causes of cardiac arrest. Third, if CPR instructions were included, the FPDS would have to account for all ages of patients including neonates, and that is considered to be out of the scope of the FPDS at this time (this could potentially change later as protocol and software capabilities evolve).

Conclusion
If this amount of change all at once seems overwhelming, comprehensive educational tools were released with FPDS v8. This includes a video tutorial that goes through all the changes in a ProQA demo, protocol by protocol. There will also be more in-depth looks at some of these changes in future Fire CDEs.