UniFire

St. Tammany Parish Unified Fire Dispatch (UniFire) began operations on October 1, 2007. UniFire has the responsibility of handling emergency communications for 10 of the fire districts within the Parish.

The participating fire departments are Fire District 2 – Madisonville; Fire District 3 – Lacombe; Fire District 4 – Mandeville; Fire District 5 – Folsom; Fire District 6 – Lee Road; Fire District 7 – Sixth Ward; Fire District 8 – Abita Springs; Fire District 9 – Bush; Fire District 10 – Sun; and FD12.

FD12 also entered into an agreement with the 9-1-1 Board and the participating Fire Districts to hire and train the Communications Officers (dispatchers). The communications facility is housed within the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on Boston Street in Covington.

Unified fire department communications provides improved service to the public and to the individual fire departments. The 9-1-1 operators and the Unified Fire Dispatchers are located in the same room. The same area also houses the dispatchers for the Sheriff’s Office. Having the various agencies working in the same facility helps to coordinate interagency response, reduces response time, and helps to eliminate confusion. The trend, nationwide, is to utilize combined emergency communications facilities.

The dispatch center in the EOC is now a state-of-the-art facility. It is of concrete and steel construction and is designed to withstand hurricane-force winds.