Moving Oxfordshire's fire control room to a regional base in Hampshire will increase the potential for 999 call handler mistakes, a former firefighter has warned.

John Farrow,county firefighter for 38 years, fears the transfer will lead to incidents similar to a South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) bungle which saw an ambulance directed to the wrong county.

On that occasion a call handler in Milton Keynes accidentally sent an ambulance to Grove in Bedfordshire instead of Grove in Wantage. The 14-year-old girl who had collapsed, survived but stopped breathing during her hour-long wait.

Once the county's fire control room in Kidlington is moved to Fareham in January 2011, phone operators will take calls from people in eight counties — twice the size of the SCAS area.

Mr Farrow, who worked in the county's control room for 14 years, said: "Fire operators are trained very highly to deal with the county and surrounding counties, but you can't expect someone sitting in Fareham to know the ins and outs of north or south Oxfordshire.

"It is a very large area to cover and it increases the possibility of error."

Mr Farrow, a former county council cabinet member for community safety, added: "With the ambulance service incident there was a degree of human error involved. A similar mistake could happen with the fire service."

The Government wants to establish nine regional control centres to allow emergency services to better co-ordinate responses to major incidents like the Buncefield fire and London bombings.

Oxfordshire's control room in Kidlington will be merged with eight others, with operators 83 miles from the current control room.

It is hoped the move will save £1.4m a year in running costs, £3.4m less than was previously estimated in July last year.

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service acting assistant chief fire officer Colin Thomas said: "I can understand the concerns and our view is that local knowledge is always a good thing.

"But the technology provided actually traces the calls and provides handlers with a geographical mapping system so we know exactly where the call is from."