A whistle-blowing former fire chief has been invited to talks with the service over the controversial control room move – as further examples of geographical blunders emerged.
The Inverness team of emergency call-handlers who dealt with the Highlands was moved to Dundee in early December in a controversial move that senior firefighters warned against.
And now, those still serving have given Mr Kidd further evidence of confusion in dispatching crews to a series of call-outs, in particular in and around Inverness.
Recent reported incidents within the last two weeks, include the Inverness crew getting called out to a property at the city’s Old Edinburgh Road, rather than Orion House, the Castle Heather home of the Orion Group recruitment firm.
Meanwhile, Mr Kidd said he had also heard that fire personnel from Gairloch and Kinlochbervie were sent to the wrong address in Gairloch.
He has been invited to meet his former employers to discuss the rising number of reports centring on an apparent lack of local geographical knowledge.
Mr Kidd, a former Highlands and Islands area manager for the service, yesterday said that in the subsequent fortnight a further eight incidents have been brought to his attention – the bulk of them in and around the Highland capital.
He has blamed the Scottish Government for the problems that have been brought to his attention.
Mr Kidd, who retired in 2008 after 32 years with the fire service, said he was “not at all” reassured by statements from the fire service in the wake of the initial reports.
He added: “When they said to you that the ‘appropriate response’ was sent to all the incidents mentioned they were correct. But the fact is, it was 10 or 15 or 20 minutes later than it should have been, which means it’s not acceptable.”
Mr Kidd expects to meet fire service chiefs in the coming days to discuss the issues people have raised with him.
“My argument is not with the fire service. It’s with the Scottish Government,” he said.
“The single fire service and the centralisation is not working. We told them 12 years ago it wouldn’t work.”
Mr Kidd has discussed the issues with Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant in the last few days.
She said: “Alec and others have very real concerns. In some respects this is no surprise because we had voiced these concerns prior to the control room closure.
“The computer systems are not speaking to each other properly. That has been dealt with but it should have been dealt with long before.
“There are reasonable explanations for some of the concerns and the service is working on other issues that have surfaced. But, given the warnings, they should have had the right systems in place.”
Mrs Grant said she had been raising the issues with fire chief Alasdair Hay and, as a result of contacting the service, she had been invited to visit the Dundee control room and would take up the offer.
She urged anyone with evidence of failings associated with the switch of control rooms to contact her.
“It’s not about having a pop at the service,” she said. “This is to ensure nothing goes wrong with disastrous effects.”
The fire service’s deputy chief officer, Alex Clark, said: “We continue to attend at every emergency.
“Our new north operations control is part of a £10million investment programme that will provide the communities of the north with a state-of-the-art capability.”
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “The creation of a single service, backed by cross-party support across the Scottish Parliament and developed with firefighters themselves, has removed artificial barriers and has allowed improved distribution of specialist equipment and expertise throughout Scotland.”
