The Stratford Fire Department Communications centre is located at Station #1, 388 Erie Street and is staffed by trained personnel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Communicators receive and dispatch fire and emergency calls for the City of Stratford as well as five other municipalities within Perth County and four municipalities within Huron County. We are a 9-1-1 community with links to police agencies and the Provincial Central Ambulance Communications Centre (CACC).

The Communications Division is comprised of four full time dispatchers and three secretary/dispatchers working shift rotations similar to the Suppression Division.

Emergency response is confined to the City's corporate limits, with some automatic aid exceptions. The Stratford Fire Department is also part of the Perth County Mutual Aid System, a system that allows for any fire department to call on another for assistance during an extraordinary event. The assistance is provided at no cost to the requesting municipality.

The first priority of a communicator is to collect all pertinent information concerning fire and other emergency situations and to ensure the appropriate first responders are dispatched to the location.

Communicators monitor four UHF radio frequencies and dispatch county departments via a wide area-paging network consisting of several communiciatons towers with a range of up to 30 kilometers into surrounding counties. The Stratford Fire Department's radio complement includes 16 portables, ten mobile radios, and two base stations.

In 2008 two mobile repeaters were installed on frontline apparatus located at each station. This communications enhancement will provide for better portable radio reception throughout our coverage area.