in neutralizing the terrorists. EMERCOM was not prepared to protect personnel from the gas, and this deficiency reduced the success of the rescue effort. This case study was discussed in detail at a previous interacademy workshop.¹

Aleksei Popov of the Center for Information Technology of EMERCOM discussed the development of automated systems for a single emergency dispatch service. The current system relies on separate emergency dispatchers for fire, police, and medical services. A unified duty dispatch service for fire, police, medical, emergency, gas leak, and antiterrorism response is in development, with a single emergency number (112) to be set up in 2008. A national crisis center is being established for the dispatch service for 112 calls. The 112 calls received by the regional dispatch service will be reported to the unified dispatcher.

The Research Institute for Fire Protection is part of the State Fire Service and is the main fire engineering research center in Russia. The institute participates in research and in implementation of state scientific and technological policy in the field of fire safety. The institute maintains extensive information on fire emergency situations, regularly analyzes the information, and provides support for the implementation of management decisions. The institute has a situation center that conducts mathematical modeling of fires.

Modeling helps determine the number of firefighting crews needed for a given incident and where to deploy them. The total time taken to detect a fire, receive the information, alert the fire brigade, dispatch the fire brigade to the site, and extinguish the fire should all be less than the time it takes to evacuate a burning building. The firefighting system is being reformed and will be divided into five divisions: (1) federal, (2) subnational, (3) sectoral (government ministries and departments), (4) municipal, and (5) privately owned and volunteer.

The site visit concluded with a tour of the building where various pieces of equipment are tested to determine whether they meet fire code standards and where new materials and methods for fire safety are also tested.