Friday, August 4, 2000 
2 dispatch towers out of action
Phone line blamed for 8-hour problem
By BEA LEWIS
Staff Writer
LACONIA — Two of Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid dispatch radio towers went dead for more than eight hours Thursday after a technical problem with a telephone line.
Volunteer firefighters in the region were called to man their stations after the glitch was discovered about 4 p.m., but officials said the problem never posed a public safety risk.
"We have lots of redundancy built into the system," said Lt. Ed Darling, who serves as training officer with LRMFA.
The problem with the telephone line silenced the towers on Mount Belknap and on Blue Job in Strafford, according to Darling, who explained the network's remaining six towers were unaffected. The problem never caused the dispatching center to lose radio contact with area firefighters or emergency medical personnel, but did impact the quality of reception in some areas.
The telephone company was notified of the problem and sent technicians to pinpoint the source of the outage. Darling said the dispatching center's telephone system remained fully functional despite the inability to communicate with the two towers.
Although the National Weather Service posted a severe thunderstorm warning for the entire state through 7 p.m. Thursday, Darling said, it is not believed the problem is weather-related. The fire tower watchman atop Belknap Mountain reported no storm activity, he said.
"Our contingency plan is to have personnel stay in the stations until we get the problem fixed," Darling said.
"It's an extra precautionary measure because of the critical nature of what we do. We overreact. That's what we get paid to do," he said.
Fire dispatch notified its member departments around midnight that both towers were back in operation.

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