Anyone who innocently strolls through the fourth floor of Fire Station 4 in Schwabing and then walks through the glass doors into the largest room on the floor has no idea what is happening there. What you see is familiar from footage of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange or the control center of the American space agency Nasa in the news: people with headphones and microphones lean back in office chairs, surrounded by half a dozen flat screens, computer keyboards and a telephone system in front of them. What you hear is a muffled murmur of the kind you hear in fancy restaurants. You have to be a long-serving expert like Simon Kiening, the head of the department, to realize: “It’s buzzing today.”
It’s hotter than average this Wednesday, a lot of people are outdoors, so Kiening expects an above-average number of calls: bike accidents, wasp stings, circulatory collapse. Whoever needs medical help and dials the emergency number 112 ends up in the integrated control center for the fire brigade and rescue services, on the fourth floor of fire station 4.
When the emergency services in Munich were merged almost exactly 25 years ago for the purpose of better communication and bundling of information and the integrated control center went into operation in the Westend on July 11, 1997, the facility was the first of its kind in Bavaria and with its two computer screens per workplace even “one of the most modern in Europe,” says fire director Florentin von Kaufmann, head of the operations control department at the Munich fire brigade. There are now 26 such facilities in the Free State and the one in Munich has moved from Schwanthalerhöhe to Schwabing.
At that time there were only three screens: The former control center on the Schwanthalerhöhe in 2003.
(Photo: Fire Directorate)
In addition to new premises, the employees also received new software in 2013. Now everything is digitized and controlled by computer, but they have kept the old analog tools just in case, the folders with the various telephone numbers, the magnetic boards on which they can move the available emergency vehicles back and forth. “If our computer fails, we can’t just have a cup of coffee and wait for it to work again,” says Michael Karger, one of the shift supervisors. “We mustn’t miss an emergency call.”
The Munich control center is responsible for the city and the district. “In terms of area, we’re the smallest in Bavaria,” says Kaufmann; but in terms of population density, they look after one of the largest conurbations in Germany. You can tell by the more than 1.1 million calls that the control center registered last year. On average, that’s more than 3,000 emergency calls a day. Kiening says that experience has shown that every third call leads to an operation.
To manage this, a total of around 230 dispatchers are available, mostly men and officials from the fire department. They work in two shifts and complete 24-hour shifts, which also include on-call duties. “As a result, we have large reserves that we can mobilize quickly for acute situations,” explains Kaufmann.
The spectacular major events that have been controlled by the control center over the past quarter century include the S-Bahn accident on the Leuchtenbergring with 54 injuries in 2004, the blackout of 2012, when 450,000 people in Munich were suddenly without power and many people were stuck in elevators , but also the terrorist attack at the Olympia shopping center six years ago. The dispatchers coordinate all operations and get everything that is needed on the way as quickly and efficiently as possible: personnel, vehicles, equipment.
The first woman in the control center: Lioba Huber has been with us for 25 years.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
But of course there are also many everyday things that cause emergency calls. In conversations with the callers, the dispatchers in the control center first try to find a solution and give people tips until the emergency services arrive. “We don’t want to leave the citizens alone,” says fire director Kaufmann. “When older people call and you can help them on the phone, that’s one of the nicest things,” says Lioba Huber, one of the few women in the control center, but one of the first to do so.
In order to work as a dispatcher in the control center, you need fire service training and basic medical training, for example as a paramedic. Technical and psychological skills are then acquired in special further training. But all that doesn’t mean that the control center employees just sit in front of their desks, Kaufmann assures: “They’re still out on the streets on emergency services.”