Every emergency fire call in the north-east will be diverted to Dundee from today in a controversial shake-up.
Aberdeen’s 999 control room was due to take its last call at 10am – and its equivalent in Inverness is due to close its doors in less than a month.
Only a handful of the 24 Granite City staff have chosen to make the move south, further fuelling safety fears over a lack of local knowledge.
They will be working 0ut of temporary buildings because a new state-of-the-art centre will not be ready until at least March.
Political and trade union critics said they would be watching carefully for any deterioration in service.
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is cutting the number of control centres nationally from eight to three and chose Tayside over Aberdeen or the Highland Capital to cover the north and north-east.
It says “robust fail-safe measures” are in place to ensure “resilience and full operational capability is maintained at all times”.
Training has been carried out to aid in understanding local dialects.
Deputy assistant chief officer Andy Coueslant said staff had worked “exceptionally hard to ensure a seamless transition”.
“We will continue to stand on the front line, attending every 999 call.”
But the Fire Brigades Union Scotland said it still had concerns “given the huge area that the Dundee control centre will cover”.
Regional secretary Stephen Thomson said: “Obviously we have confidence in our members that they will gain the necessary knowledge.
“But that will take some time to bed in. We will be keeping a close eye.”
Of the Aberdeen staff, seven are moving to other SFRS jobs, seven have taken voluntary severance package and five chose early retirement.
They will remain in place until the end of the month to help with the changeover but will not take calls.
The Inverness control centre will close on December 6.
Peter Chapman, Scottish Conservative MSP for the North East Region, said it was wrong to shut down Aberdeen’s modern control room at all – and “ridiculous” to do it before its replacement was ready.
“The Scottish Conservatives will be keeping a close eye on the performance of the control rooms going forward,” he said.
“In the meantime, we can only hope that the switch will not cause the types of problems that have been predicted.”
