diff --git a/drb-c2-core/app/internal/incident_correlator.py b/drb-c2-core/app/internal/incident_correlator.py
index be66145..4c3bda0 100644
--- a/drb-c2-core/app/internal/incident_correlator.py
+++ b/drb-c2-core/app/internal/incident_correlator.py
@@ -731,8 +731,16 @@ def _run_decision(ctx: dict) -> dict:
     # Anything the extractor judged a real event, or that carries any concrete
     # content, now opens an incident under the neutral "other" type.  Only
     # content-free routine traffic is still left for the thin path to attach.
+    #
+    # `call_units` and `location` are NOT substance.  Radio protocol puts a unit
+    # ID in essentially every transmission and a place name in most of them, so
+    # including them made has_substance true almost always and the severity check
+    # dead code — the first version of this gate turned "11-Victor, 72 at Holland
+    # Station" into its own incident and left 37 of 50 incidents open, one call
+    # each.  A vehicle, a geocode, or a tag means the extractor found something
+    # beyond who was speaking and where they stood.
     if not resolved_type:
-        has_substance = bool(call_units or call_vehicles or coords or location or tags)
+        has_substance = bool(call_vehicles or coords or tags)
         if call_severity in ("minor", "moderate", "major") or has_substance:
             resolved_type = "other"
             logger.info(
diff --git a/drb-c2-core/app/internal/intelligence.py b/drb-c2-core/app/internal/intelligence.py
index f86ef77..694ed2b 100644
--- a/drb-c2-core/app/internal/intelligence.py
+++ b/drb-c2-core/app/internal/intelligence.py
@@ -68,6 +68,13 @@ System: {system_id}
 Talkgroup: {talkgroup_name}
 {ten_codes_block}{vocabulary_block}{transcript_block}"""
 
+# The incident_type enum offered to the model in EXTRACTION_PROMPT.  Kept here
+# rather than only in the prompt so a model that invents a value cannot write it
+# into incident.type.  "unknown" is deliberately absent — it is a real answer
+# from the model but not a usable type, and is normalised to None alongside
+# anything unrecognised.
+_VALID_INCIDENT_TYPES = frozenset({"fire", "ems", "police", "accident", "other"})
+
 # Geographic bias radius for geocoding — half-width in degrees (~55 km)
 _GEO_DELTA = 0.5
 
@@ -240,7 +247,19 @@ async def extract_scenes(
         # and is kept.  Collapsing it to None used to make the call untypeable,
         # and an untypeable call could never open an incident — see the creation
         # gate in incident_correlator._run_decision().
-        if incident_type in ("unknown", ""):
+        #
+        # Anything outside the enum is a model error, not a new category.  The
+        # value is written straight through to incident.type and rendered as the
+        # incident title, so on 2026-08-16 a model that answered the severity
+        # question in the type field produced an incident literally titled
+        # "Routine — TGID 9563".  Unrecognised values become None and fall to the
+        # tag/severity path, which is the same treatment "unknown" already got.
+        if incident_type not in _VALID_INCIDENT_TYPES:
+            if incident_type and incident_type != "unknown":
+                logger.warning(
+                    f"Intelligence: discarding invalid incident_type {incident_type!r} "
+                    f"(not in {sorted(_VALID_INCIDENT_TYPES)})"
+                )
             incident_type = None
 
         # Geocode this scene's location.
@@ -420,11 +439,17 @@ async def _geocode_location(
                 return None
             result = data["results"][0]
             location_type = result.get("geometry", {}).get("location_type", "")
-            # Only accept address-level precision. GEOMETRIC_CENTER (city/neighborhood
-            # centroid) and APPROXIMATE (region boundary) produce coordinates that look
-            # valid but are too vague for 0.5km proximity matching — they often resolve
-            # to the same point as the node's position and create false proximity matches.
-            if location_type not in ("ROOFTOP", "RANGE_INTERPOLATED"):
+            # Reject only APPROXIMATE — a region/city boundary centroid, which is
+            # what an ungeocodable string degrades to and is genuinely useless.
+            #
+            # ROOFTOP-only was too strict and emptied the map: dispatch names
+            # places the way people speak, and Google returns GEOMETRIC_CENTER for
+            # exactly those forms — intersections ("Lake Street and Veterans
+            # Memorial Drive") and named POIs ("Brewster Station"). Both are
+            # precise enough to plot and to proximity-match; requiring a street
+            # address threw away nearly every real dispatch location, leaving only
+            # numbered addresses geocoded.
+            if location_type not in ("ROOFTOP", "RANGE_INTERPOLATED", "GEOMETRIC_CENTER"):
                 logger.info(
                     f"Geocoding rejected '{location_str}' — imprecise result "
                     f"(location_type={location_type!r}), returning None"
diff --git a/drb-c2-core/tests/test_correlator_gate.py b/drb-c2-core/tests/test_correlator_gate.py
index 19eb83b..2736d51 100644
--- a/drb-c2-core/tests/test_correlator_gate.py
+++ b/drb-c2-core/tests/test_correlator_gate.py
@@ -67,10 +67,8 @@ def test_any_real_severity_opens_an_untyped_incident(severity):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("field,value", [
-    ("call_units",    ["6 Adam"]),
     ("call_vehicles", ["RMP 22146"]),
     ("coords",        {"lat": 41.0, "lng": -73.8}),
-    ("location",      "District 6"),
     ("tags",          ["prisoner-transport"]),
 ])
 def test_concrete_content_opens_an_untyped_incident(field, value):
@@ -80,6 +78,32 @@ def test_concrete_content_opens_an_untyped_incident(field, value):
     assert decision["incident_type"] == "other"
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("field,value", [
+    ("call_units", ["11-Victor"]),
+    ("location",   "Holland Station"),
+])
+def test_ambient_radio_fields_are_not_substance(field, value):
+    """
+    A unit ID and a place name appear in nearly every transmission, so treating
+    them as substance made the severity check dead code: "11-Victor, 72 at
+    Holland Station" opened its own incident, and 37 of 50 incidents were single
+    routine calls left permanently active.
+    """
+    assert _run_decision(_ctx(**{field: value}))["action"] == "orphan"
+
+
+def test_units_and_location_together_still_orphan():
+    decision = _run_decision(_ctx(call_units=["11-Victor"], location="Holland Station"))
+    assert decision["action"] == "orphan"
+
+
+def test_units_with_real_severity_still_open_an_incident():
+    """Severity is the gate — ambient fields don't block it, they just can't open it alone."""
+    decision = _run_decision(_ctx(call_units=["11-Victor"], call_severity="moderate"))
+    assert decision["action"] == "new"
+    assert decision["incident_type"] == "other"
+
+
 def test_explicit_type_is_never_downgraded_to_other():
     decision = _run_decision(_ctx(incident_type="police", call_severity="moderate"))
     assert decision["action"] == "new"