Yakima Training Center switch from 'antiquated' dispatch system to SunComm 911

Yakima Bureau Chief/Multi-Media Journalist

Emily Goodell reports.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima Training Center firefighters are getting ready to switch over to using SunComm as their primary dispatch after years of struggling with an outdated system.

"Before it was just the systems were antiquated, our calls would have to go through two or three call takers before it ever got to us," YTC Fire Chief Christopher Dykstra said. "Where now, it's just one call taker, so we should see a greatly reduced response time."

Dykstra said 911 calls near the Yakima Training Center were previously sent to the nearest dispatch center, which could end up being in Yakima, Kittitas or Grant counties depending on the location. From there, the calls would be transferred to the YTC dispatch center and be answered by a police officer instead of a trained 911 dispatcher.

"They didn't have the updated CAD system, so times weren't always accurate; locations we were going to wouldn't always be accurate." Dykstra said. "The biggest thing was we weren't meeting meeting requirements."

Dykstra said they considered several options, including investing in their own dispatch center or running their dispatch through Joint-Base Lewis McChord, but they were more costly and less efficient than running all calls through SunComm.

"Part of that process was getting all of YTC — even the Kittitas County portion of it — geofenced so 911 calls will be directed to SunComm," Dykstra said.

Dykstra said that means people who listen to scanner traffic will start hearing more calls about the training center, especially during fire season.

"It may seem like we're a lot busier, we're getting more fires; we're really not," Dykstra said. "It's just before, it wasn't out there like it's going to be now through SunComm."

Dykstra said the contract with SunComm is an intergovernmental service agreement for 10 years with an annual renewal. He said they're waiting on a final part of the system to arrive, but they anticipate being fully switched over by the end of the month.

"It's going to help us out immensely when they have it and when those brush fires start," Dykstra said.

Dykstra said the it's the latest in a series of improvements the fire department has made in the past six months, including a brand-new radio system that arrived Monday.

"It should fill a lot of the dead spaces that we had downrange," Dykstra said. "The biggest thing is we should have a lot more coverage."

Dykstra said they're also enjoying all the upgrades in the new fire station they moved into over the winter — one that's big enough to fit five buildings the size of the previous station.

"Our previous fire station was just under 6,000 square feet; the new fire station is about 30,000 square feet," Dykstra said. "We were in three previous buildings to house all our apparatus and administrative ... and we're now under one roof."

Dykstra said having a bigger kitchen, a fitness facility and five washers and dryers — instead of just one each to share between nearly a dozen people — are just a few improvements made in the new building, but they've had an even bigger impact on the firefighters.

"Before, we had anywhere from nine to 11 people crammed into a small little building and the kitchen and training room day room was all one room," Dykstra said. "Now we have all those individual spaces ... it's easier for families to come out and visit and relax with them."

Dykstra said after years of being used to working through a patchwork system to try to get the job done, it's a relief for firefighters not to have to worry about putting everything together.

"We got a lot of new equipment, updated equipment and then setting up the dispatch coming up, just greatly improves morale," Dykstra said. "You feel a little bit better and more confident like you're more prepared to do the job when the tones go off, where previously it was like okay, tones go off, how do we get to the mitigating this emergency?"

Dykstra said he believes all the new improvements will also help the department when it comes to recruitment and retention.

"Sometimes the process is just so long to get them on board, but we're definitely getting more applicants now and I believe the new station and any equipment stuff that we have is leading to that," Dykstra said.

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Yakima Bureau Chief/Multi-Media Journalist

Emily Goodell joined the KAPP/KVEW team in February 2019.

Emily was born in raised in Yakima, where she currently works as our Yakima Bureau Chief. She's worked in nearly every journalism medium, but above all else, her passion is investigative reporting. At the Yakima Herald-Republic, Emily worked as a breaking news, city government and crime and courts reporter. She's served as a city government and education reporter at the Ellensburg Daily Record, a freelance journalist for Yakima Valley Publishing and as Northwest Public Broadcasting's Yakima Correspondent.

Emily completed a news reporting internship with Spokane Public Radio and an arts and culture reporting internship with The Inlander, an alternative urban weekly in Spokane, Wash.

She also covered censorship and freedom of the press issues facing student media across the nation at the Student Press Law Center in Washington, D.C. Emily graduated from Whitworth University in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in Journalism & Mass Communication.

In college, Emily worked with her colleagues and researchers at Florida International University on a collaborative project looking at the experiences of women working as professionals in the communication field. Throughout her high school and college career, Emily competed in speech and debate tournaments at the regional, state and national level.

Emily is an avid traveler. Within the U.S., she's visited 16 states and the District of Columbia. Outside the country, she's also been to Canada, the United Kingdom and South Africa. While in Durban, South Africa, Emily was more than 10,000 miles away from her hometown — about as far as you can get.

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Yakima Training Center switch from 'antiquated' dispatch system to SunComm 911