Thread:Comments:'Completely irresponsible' woman called emergency services to report theft of snowman/999?/reply (6)

Ah ok. Here there are two types of service: Either you have 911 or there is no emergency services number, and you have to directly call the police/fire/EMS station by their proper phone number IE, 1-408-222-3523 (this is increasing rare, even in distant rural areas). 911 which calls a central routing place. You talk to the operators, who decide for themselves what type of ES to dispatch. They don't reroute you to a separate dispatcher, AFAIK.

We don't have separate emergency numbers for police, fire, or EMS. If you need fire fighters, you call 911. Same with police, and same with EMS. In my city we each pay a small amount on every phone bill (like, 20 cents per month or something) to maintain the central routing service for emergency services.