Fire Department Makes The Shift From Clunky Rugged Laptops To Rugged Mobile Tablets

When the call comes in, there’s no time for fumbling.

Firefighters need quick access to accurate information about an incident’s location and severity and the best way to get there. They also need to know about available water supply and whether nearby fire departments and EMS units are able to respond and assist. Once on scene, incident commanders need seamless ways to track personnel and equipment and manage resources. And after firefighters have returned to their station, administrators need to easily catalog and report incidents.

Written documentation used to be the gold standard for fire departments. But water and fire can easily ruin paper documentation and paper doesn’t provide incident commanders or off-site dispatch officials with real-time updates. The need for fire departments to find a technology solution is clear.

Even so, many fire departments across the country—especially volunteer departments, which often lack the financial resources of paid municipal departments—still rely on paper documentation to coordinate their response and manage incident information, an impractical solution that can put lives and property at risk.