Our area benefits from a system developed decades ago under the Central Ohio Regional Emergency Services (CORES). In an effort to eliminate the redundancy and confusion of every fire department having an "Engine 1", some of the county fire chiefs developed a system where each type of emergency vehicle was identified by a specific function-based term, and every department was assigned a unique range of numbers for their apparatus. This process greatly improved radio communication and became a vital benefit for dispatchers and incident commanders. It also serves as a means of personnel accountability at the emergency scene, where the dynamic nature of some incidents can cause those in charge to lose track of the location and safety of their resources.
Worthington Fire & EMS is assigned the number range 100-109. This sometimes confuses people who want to know where we keep the other 99 vehicles. (This is an actual anecdote.) In reality, we staff Engine/Rescue 101, Ladder 101, Medic 101, and Battalion 101 as our front-line operations apparatus, with the ladder company personnel switching to Medic 102 if they are available and there is an overlapping second EMS run. Hazmat 101 is staffed as-needed with hazmat technicians from the on-duty personnel on the other apparatus. We maintain a heavy-duty utility vehicle (Utility 101) that is unstaffed but used for anything from picking up wet hose from a fire scene to pulling our water rescue boat and trailer (Boat 101) to an emergency.
The reserve apparatus consists of an engine/rescue truck (Engine/Rescue 102) and two reserve medics (Medic 102 and Medic 103).
Staff vehicles consist of Chief 101 (fire chief), Chief 102 (operations assistant chief), Chief 103 (EMS & community risk reduction assistant chief) and Prevention 101 (fire prevention lieutenant).