About Us

Tolland County Mutual Aid Fire Service Inc. is a regional 911 center located in Tolland, Connecticut. The center provides 911 services to sixteen towns encompassing thirty-four emergency service organizations within Tolland, Windham, and Hartford Counties. In addition to providing 911 services, the center dispatches and coordinates the resources for all medical, rescue, and fire emergencies within its area of responsibility. We are extremely proud to be one of the model emergency centers in the northeast that proves time and time again that regionalization can and does make sense in our communities. We continue to strive to provide cost effective services to the communities we serve in these difficult economic times.

The organizational structure consists of a Board of Directors that have the responsibility of ensuring the center is equipped and staffed properly. The Board of Directors takes their direction ultimately through the representative Fire Chiefs whose departments are dispatched through our organization. Involved in maintaining the day-to-day activities are an Executive Director, Operations Director, and a Finance Director who are responsible to the Board. Our staff consists of eight full time, and four part time emergency telecommunicators. These individuals are all highly trained and share the common goal of providing the most efficient, comprehensive, personal service the Fire Departments in Tolland County have become accustomed to.

In addition to the dispatching services provided through the center, Tolland County, for many years now, has the luxury of a Search and Rescue and Dive team. The teams are made up by firefighters within our communities and are extremely qualified for their particular functions.

The county teams operate under an explicitly detailed chain of command as outlined in Tolland County's Emergency Operations Plan. This plan was authored and implemented by the Tolland County Coordinators. This group of highly skilled individuals is responsible for coordinating any large-scale incident that depletes or has the potential to deplete local resources for any given emergency. As we are all aware, the times we live in dictate a unified approach to the myriad of potential disasters, both natural and man-made. Tolland County, with the assistance from State and Federal entities, believes it is moving in the right direction to ensure the safety of all our citizens within our response area.

Without our cost effective services to the sixteen towns, each town would be faced with the awesome task of ensuring each department is dispatched appropriately and in a timely manner utilizing their own skilled workforce. The economic impact would come at a cost most municipalities cannot bear. Every town statewide is faced with the reality of having to provide enhanced services with fewer dollars from the towns taxpayers or from the State. We routinely endeavor to keep costs down to the member agencies.

We had operated out of a building that was deeded to the organization back in the 1960's. Due to sound financial decisions for the past many years we are now proudly operating out of our new center that was added on to the existing building.

This addition has provided the proper area required to perform our functions, as well as provide an emergency operations center in the event of a large-scale incident in Tolland County and surrounding areas. This new building was designed to meet or exceed ISO and NFPA standards where possible. Included with the building upgrade is state of the art computer aided dispatch and radio interface programs. With the improvement and cost effectiveness of microwave technology we have upgraded our system with a totally wireless solution to the main transmitters. The microwave system has replaced the existing telephone cable connections and provides the security required to support our operations.

Tolland County Mutual Aid Fire Service Inc. and other 911 centers, whether local or regional in structure, have evolved into the designation of first responders; a designation we are all extremely proud to share with all emergency service professionals across the nation.

Member Departments