Hawaii County Fire Department/EMS

The Hawaii County Fire Department's "Fire Protection Division" has the responsibility of protecting life and property from fire and other multifarious emergencies. HFD's multi-emergency work force manages a variety of crises throughout the island of Hawaii and adjacent shores. HCFD provides the following services for all Big Island residents and visitors: (1) Fire suppression (structural, vehicular, brush, crops, etc.), (2) medical emergencies (pre-hospital for traumatic or natural illness), (3) land and sea rescues involving water sports or fishing, overdue hikers, hunters, or fishermen, etc; (4) vehicular or other extrications, (5) hazardous materials mitigation. [Text pulled from the Hawaii County FD Annual Reports].

The Hawaii County Fire Department has 20 full-time fire/medic stations, and twenty volunteer fire stations. There are over 60+ pieces of apparatus available for a variety of emergencies that may occur on the Big Island's 4,028 square miles (yes, it is a VERY huge island with limited resources).

For firefighting purposes, the County of Hawaii is divided into two battalion areas, East and West. All multiple-alarm calls (structure fires, rescues, and auto-accident with extrication) require a full-alarm assignment in which a Battalion Chief is called to respond as well. The Battalion Chief's primarily responsibility is to provide direction and control of an incident so that other emergency services can render assistance, should it become necessary.

All dispatches for Fire and Medical units are done on 154.385 MHz using a two-tone paging system similar to those used by the Federal Fire Department on Oahu and various Emergency Medical Services departments within the state. Unlike other Fire/EMS/Rescue departments which dispatch only fire or medical calls, Hawaii County dispatches both departments, and is able to coordinate co-response units much quicker than on Maui or even Oahu.

Each station/medic unit is assigned a pre-determined tactical frequency as outlined below. All on-scene communications and status reports take place on that one frequency, and Medics switch over to 453.4000 (Medicom) for all hospital-to-ambulance communications. Channels 4 and 5 are tactical simplex frequencies used in major multiple-alarm emergencies where coordination and direction is of utmost importance.

ISLAND OF HAWAII - HAWAII COUNTY AGENCIES 10-CODE

Hawaii County Police Department Response Codes

1	Normal response
2	Emergency response (no lights & siren)
3	Emergency response (lights & siren)

Hawaii County Police Department 10-Codes

10-1	Return to station	10-14	Chow
10-2	Call ____	10-15	Officer in trouble
10-3	Meet officer/complainant	10-16	Prisoner/subject in custody
10-4	Acknowledge	10-17	Direct traffic
10-5	Location	10-18	Test signal
10-6	Repeat	10-19	Motor vehicle accident (MVA)
10-7	Arrived at scene	10-27	Drivers license check
10-8	In service	10-28	License plate check
10-9	Off the car (give location)	10-44	Suspect left scene
10-10	EMS Call	10-92	Parking violation
10-11	Expedite	10-96	Drunk/DUI
10-12	Lavatory	10-99	Bomb threat
10-13	Call home

Hawaii County Fire-Rescue-EMS 10-Codes

10-0	Unreachable by radio	10-7	Standing by
10-1	Responding	10-8	Call by phone
10-2	At scene	10-9	Repeat
10-3	Returning to station	10-10	Transporting patient
10-4	Acknowledge	10-11	Transporting DOA
10-5	At station	10-X	Available by radio
10-6	Situation report	10-Y	Available at home

Hawaii County EMS Patient & Priority Transport Codes

Alpha	Patient in good/fair condition	Priority 1	Emergency transport to ____ hospital.
Bravo	Patient in serious condition	Priority 2	Priority transport to ____ hospital.
Charlie	Patient in critical condition	Priority 3	Routine transport to ____ hospital.
Delta	Patient DOA

Hawaii County Police Department Info

Hawaii County Fire Department/EMS

Introduction