Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. Over a hundred contributed in the last decade on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Bill Wohl who is 35+ year veteran of corporate communications and branding, with leadership roles at technology brands like SAP, HP & Commvault. Today he is the Head of Brand & Communications at United Rentals, the world's largest equipment rental company with annual revenues of more than US$9.0 billion.
I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for nearly 40 years. In the United States, the vast majority of fire stations in small and mid-sized towns are staffed by volunteers, in a tradition of community service that dates back to beginnings of our nation.
I serve in a rural and increasingly suburban community some 45 minutes southwest of Philadelphia in Chester County, PA. The West Grove Fire Company was founded in 1904, and has been serving a 68 square mile area across multiple townships since the days of horse-drawn apparatus.
Today, a dedicated group of volunteers man three fire stations, with a fleet of fire trucks (three engines/pumpers, one rescue, one ladder, one water tanker, three ambulances, two pickup trucks, a brush truck and several command vehicles). About 50 “active” volunteers are supplemented by a small group of career staff who man the ambulances and provide crews in the daytime when many of the volunteers are at work. Are we busy? Yes! In 2019, we responded to 651 fire calls and 2442 fire calls.
Since the days of water buckets and horses, innovation and technology have continually redefined the way we operate in West Grove. Horses gave way to motorized fire trucks (in fact our 1928 Hale pumper was recently restored and remains in our “fleet”), water buckets were replaced by powerful 2000 gallons per minute pumps, and rubberized coats and boots are a thing of the past as full sets of turnout gear strengthened by modern fabrics protect us from 1000+ temperatures and debris (at $1500.00 per person).
Technology continues to shape our operations today, and here are a few examples:
Technology and Safety at the Pump Panel
My role at the WGFC is to drive the fire trucks. The roles of the driver/operator are varied. Drive the truck safely to the fire makes sense as the primary role. But when you are the driver/operator, one of your roles is to assure a safe, continuous flow of water at the right volume and pressure to the fire crews. This is life and death work – screw that up, and your firefighters can find themselves in a burning building with no water (and that is as bad as it gets). Operating the pump panel on a modern fire truck can be imposing – multiple valves, input lines and output lines, varied pressures, water supply – all operated by one person and always at an emergency scene with a lot going on.
When I first started, maintaining a constant and appropriate water pressure to the fire was a real balancing act, requiring a juggling of incoming water flow and pressure, outgoing lines (sometimes many different hoses), adjusting the throttle of the fire truck’s engine, and always watching to see if there was adequate water supply. Changes to the water flow and pressure coming into the truck from a supply source like a hydrant could have an immediate impact on fire hoses inside the burning building, and that meant one hand on the engine throttle, one hand on a small wheel to regulate incoming pressure, and a "third hand" to regulate manually pressure flows to outgoing attack lines.
Good news: advances in technology mean today’s modern fire pumps can self-regulate pressure flows. Our trucks feature 2000 gallon per minute water pumps built by Hale. They come with a modern pressure governor that allows the operator to establish the pressure needed on the fire attack line, and then be freed up to handle other critical tasks. The pressure governor takes over the work of monitoring incoming and outgoing water flows and pressures, while continuously adjusting the fire truck’s engine speed to maintain a constant set pressure. Additionally, at major emergencies, it’s not unusual to be managing multiple outgoing hose lines and supply flows – the governor helps the operator balance engine RPM and water pressure even as the situation rapidly changes (for example: a hoseline team rapidly closes a hose line which creates a pressure spike, or the large supply line suddenly increases in pressure) – the governor quickly assures that the overall “system” is rebalanced to provide stable pressure and flows to all fire crews. This critical advance in technology frees the operator to assist in other tasks as part of the engine team of four and provides a safety layer too. Operating a fire pump is never a completely hands-off task, but technology has made it safer and easier.
Mobile Apps Monitor Volunteer Response
One fact of life in a volunteer department: you never are completely sure which volunteers are going to show up for an emergency at any moment in the day. Sure, you can use crew scheduling to help. But at the heart of being a volunteer firefighter is that you come when you can, and emergencies don’t happen on a schedule, they happen at any moment in time. Volunteers can be at work, out to dinner, sick, or even in the shower. Multiply that uncertainty across 50-60 people responding to three fire stations, and figuring out who is coming to the fire up until now has been tricky.
Why is this important? Well, it takes a crew of four people to properly staff a fire engine (driver, officer, and two firefighters). So, in a volunteer department, knowing who is responding to the fire house helps determine when an apparatus can respond, and tells the chief officers if there is enough manpower to handle a given emergency.
Well, the guessing is over, as technology steps in to help. My department uses new technology from IamResponding.com, a cloud-based web technology that provides a platform to help the WGFC respond to emergencies. This responder tracking system allows volunteers to report that they are responding and keeps track of who is coming.
Here’s how it works: When an emergency call is dispatched by the 911 center, our volunteers open up their IamResponding app on their mobile phones. A very simple interface allows us to indicate that we are responding, and to which of our three stations (or, if their role permits, directly to the scene). Each person’s mobile app also registers the response of all members – allowing everyone to know who is coming. And, at each of our stations, large monitors also display who is on the way. That way, when we arrive at the firehouse, a quick glance at the monitor tells us who is on the way. At my station, I use the app to figure out what crew is coming while I’m sitting in the fire truck, so I know to wait a minute longer for one more firefighter, or start my engine on its response to the fire.
Fire officers use the app to get a total count of who is coming, and they can make quick decisions about calling for more resources in needed.
And this great technology does so much more to help us: Each emergency comes into the app directly from our dispatch center. So the app provides us with ready access to all of the information that the dispatcher has – location, type of incident, call details and notes that can help us, etc. IamResponding gives us one touch mapping, which leverages Google mapping with turn by turn instructions to suggest the most direct route to the call (which is helpful to me as the engine driver since we never know where the next emergency will be). Active maps show us the locations of the closest hydrants for water supply (color coded by flow rate).
And recent software updates have further extended the value of this powerful tool. We can now enter locally sourced data into the system, which provides ready access to information unique to a particular address – like homes that have extremely long driveways (so we can be better prepared to handle water supply), or hazard addresses like nursing homes or businesses with potential risks due to materials inside, or solar panels on the roof, etc.
With each member armed with this mobile apps, and live call information displayed in our apparatus bays, the mystery of who is responding is behind us. And the powerful call information is available to all members of the department, arming everyone with decision-making power that only technology innovation can provide.
Advances in technology are changing the fire service. Beyond pump governors and mobile responding apps, there are countless ways technologies that help us in the fire service: Hand held gas meters help us detect dangerous gases; lightweight infrared cameras help us find and rescue victims in burning buildings; and drones are being used to survey large fire scenes from above. The pace of this innovation continues to increase, making our life saving work safer and easier year by year. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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