Now that depends. lets take a typical Vancouver Fire Rescue response to a building fire. It will consist of 12 fire fighter not including the Bat chief. This can consist of 2 Engines 1 Rescue and 1 ladder and then the bat cheif. So lets say the Fire is in VFR Hall 2 District. (check http://maps.google.c...14&source=embed to understand what I am talking about) so you would call, E1, E2, L1, Medic 1 (VFR medics are actually Rescues) (that is a total of 12. 4 each E 2 on the Medic and 2 on the Ladder) to the scene. Lets say that BC1 was on the way to hall two at the time and he was on Prior St and heading to Jackson Ave. The fire happens to be on Jackson Ave, then yes. Your BC would arrive well before any other units arrive. How ever in most canadian cities a BC will not take command right off the bat (at least the ones I have seen) they would more become a safety officer making sure that everything is safe on the scene or dealing with the press. They would also be in charge of checking up with FF health as well. So in reality is it really 50 half a dozen times that they would make it to the call before any other unit but they get called in the intial page out like everyone eles. Edit: oh haha I just thought of it... you typically see this in volunteer fire departments where they have a duty officer. My home town (which I was part of the fire department) had this. They would 99% of the time beat us to a call and we had a pretty good roll out time, (around 3-4 minutes after inital page out) for our hall. Yea