Fire Hall app to aid first responders

Times Reporter   

 

A Drumheller-based company has created an app that is making the lives of firefighters a little easier. The app, which can be found at Firehallutility.com, alerts first responders through text message when a call is sent out. Those who respond can do so by clicking on a link that will send them a map to the call location, while simultaneously being registered as responding to the call.  

“What happens when firefighters do that is it shows who is coming to the call so that when you get here to the station you can see everybody that’s responded and you know you’ve got enough people to go,” said Randy Adams, one of the three partners involved with Appinco Software, creating the software. Adams has been a firefighter for a number of years, spending time with the Drumheller detachment for one year, the Strathmore Rural Fire Department for 13 years and is currently a member of the Strathmore Fire Department. 

Whoever acknowledges the call will be able to see the quickest route to the location on the map, and is given driving directions. This information is also sent to the fire hall where a display app shows the call details, a map and a list of responders. This information can also be found in the truck on an iPad. 

“That text message has some intelligence. It knows who clicked on it and that’s how you can see who is coming to the call,” said Adams.

Strathmore and Wheatland County have all of the fire hydrant locations loaded into a database, which can also be found on the Fire Hall Utility app.  

“You can see exactly where the hydrants are, so you go to wherever your call is and you know where the closest hydrant is,” said Adams. 

It may seem like such a simple device, but the time it is saving is invaluable. 

Every firefighter has a radio that they keep nearby, whether in their car while working, or on their nightstand at night; with a phone, though, it is almost always in a person’s pocket.

In the old days you would get the notification and then head to the fire hall, talk to the dispatch centre and they would give you call information. You would write that down, look up the address on the map and figure out which map it’s on, example map 15, you get that and look at the best route to get to the call.

“It’s a very manual back and forth and there’s room for reading things wrong,” said Adams.

Now instead of taking those extra minutes to pull the map and determine the best route, firefighters can come to the hall, gear up, jump in the truck and basically just go. They will still acknowledge that they received the page or are getting ready to respond, and would probably still grab the full map just as a back-up, but all the guys will have the same information and route mapped out to the call on their smart phone and on the truck’s iPad.

All of the calls are logged as well, so the chief or one of the members could look at the last 25 or the last 500 calls and see what type of call they were, what time of day and how many people responded. Visually this helps with seeing on the map that there are lots of calls at a certain intersection or more alarm calls in one area versus another. It will also help when collecting statistics to create quarterly or annual reports.  

 “I think this is a great program, it’s current, it’s new, it’s updated on a regular basis. Everybody likes using it, it gets all the messages out when we want them, it gives us direction on where to go when there’s a fire,” said Strathmore Fire Chief Muir Furzer.

“The mapping is awesome, I mean it’s just perfect. Instead of us looking around for residences now, trying to find a house number, we look on the map, there it is. They’ve done a great job putting it together and they’re adding more as time goes on.”

Adams and his two partners launched the app a year ago. He joined to provide technical support and because he has emergency services experience as well he can help with the business development aspect of it.  When many people started carrying around smart phones about three years ago was when things really got started. 

“Everyone has got one (a smart phone) so that was really the brainchild, was to take advantage of the technology everybody has in their pocket. So we have now got almost 50 customers, Canada and the U.S and we’re looking to expand,” said Adams. 

The first 60 days are free to try and after that the pricing is based on each department’s call volumes, varying between $400 and $1,000 per year. Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices are supported. Go to Firehallutility.com to learn more.