The Courier spoke to three women on the frontlines, taking emergency calls from people needing ambulances, monitoring police while in danger, or deploying CFA strike teams across the state.

They have their stories, good and bad - from listening to a woman scream as she realises her children are locked in a burning car on your first day, to helping women in labour.

Many people don't realise what's involved when they phone 000, including Rhiannon Riske, who has been an ambulance calltaker for eight years - she started when she was just 18.

“It was the biggest shock,” she said.

“I’ve spent an hour on a call in a really rural area doing CPR on somebody’s husband.

"It’s not like putting a bandaid on it and saying the crew will be there soon, it’s actually real life people with real life things, people screaming, people in trauma, that was the reality of it - but it’s really empowering, because you are that person."

There's a family feel to the workplace, she said, which helps during the most stressful parts.

"We spend so much time together and have each other’s backs, and that’s a real thing to help pressure or hard calls," she said.

"You also get some beautiful elderly people on the phone, and you get your commendations come in the mail, and thank you letters and cards, that makes it worth it."

Protecting police units is the priority for Giselle Fradd.

“It goes from zero to one hundred very quickly,” she said.

"Being on dispatch is like being an octopus - you’ve got cars chasing other cars, you might have a siege, and all of a sudden you’ve got the critical incident response team and the special operations police and the dog squad out there and you have to coordinate.

“You get protective of the units and you really don’t like when people are messing with them.”

She also began working at ESTA 000 when she was young.

"I was only 20, I kind of thought I knew what it was going to be like," she said.

"When you’re 20, and you’ve come from a sheltered home and private schools all your life, you come in here and it’s quite eye-opening, but I also have a family full of people in the emergency services."

"You have to learn to be assertive, and in police you need to have a bit of a tough skin - you get people screaming at you, and you have to say they need to stop, you have to take control of calls and the radio.

"I know police calltaking, your primary role is care of the public, but when you move up to dispatch, your primary role is the care of police members, your job is to make sure they get home safe."

Mandy Glover is a 15-year veteran CFA dispatcher, who worked through Black Saturday - she still gets the chills when she sees the fire danger signs on the way to work.

“It is a bit of an adrenaline thing (still),” she said.

“You watch the weather and what’s going on in the world, but until you get here you don’t know what you’re going to get.

"This morning there was a truck accident and someone passed away, then you see it on the news at some stage today and that’s what makes it hit home a bit more."

She added it's interesting watching the centre grow - there are three ESTA 000 call centres in Victoria, and the Ballarat one began as a small room rented from IBM across the road.

"It’s been a real eye-opener," she said.

"It’s been a real progression, 20 staff to 300 staff, and police coming on board followed by ambulance not long after - it was quite difficult at the beginning, we were these people all of a sudden telling (the fire brigades) how to do their job.

"My husband’s an operations manager with the CFA, so I had a bit of a rough idea of what goes on in his day-to-day life, but no idea, when you come here, you’re actually dealing with people who need you, and you have to be the voice of reason and surety that everything’s going to be okay."

The confidence over the phone was the key to the whole job, she added.

“If you display that confidence to people, with that attitude that we’re okay and you’re going to be okay, they quickly pick up on that,” she said - this can make a lifesaving difference, an idea that Giselle agrees with.

“We may not be on the road like police and paramedics and firies are, but we’re the first port of call for these people who are having the worst day of their life," she said.

Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.