Government Technology

    Digital Communities
    Industry Members

  • Click sponsor logos for whitepapers, case studies, and best practices.
  • McAfee

RFID System Tracks Firefighters in Real Time, Improves Incident Management



Fireman/stock photo
Fireman

January 18, 2010 By

For an incident commander, keeping track of firefighters and equipment at the scene of an emergency can be a paper-intensive, manual process. Before deploying a system that uses radio frequency identification tags to track firefighters, the Dayville, Conn., Fire Company distributed tags to firefighters at the door of a burning building before they entered it and then retrieved the tag upon coming out.

The fire company deployed OnSite ERT (emergency resource tracking) from Michigan-based ERT Systems to track personnel at an incident and improve post-incident accountability. The system is composed of a management console, lunch-box-sized tag readers, and a wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that fits in an equipment pocket on a firefighter's suit and broadcasts his location to the reader and back to the management software. That allows incident commanders to easily generate an account of the entire incident and where each firefighter is at all times.

En route to the scene, the incident commander starts the software. Upon arriving on the scene, the incident commander places the readers around the hot zone as part of the initial assessment, defines the different areas in software and ties the readers to the zones in the software. In addition to letting the incident commander know where the firefighters are, the software also can provide a reminder to do a periodic roll call.

Go to Emergency Management's Web site for more information on RFID tracking of firefighters.


| More

Comments

Add Your Comment

You are solely responsible for the content of your comments. We reserve the right to remove comments that are considered profane, vulgar, obscene, factually inaccurate, off-topic, or considered a personal attack.

In Our Library

White Papers | Exclusives Reports | Webinar Archives | Best Practices and Case Studies
Are You Sure You Are Maximizing the Value of Your Microsoft SharePoint Investment?
The Microsoft SharePoint platform provides a wealth of opportunities for any organization to streamline business processes and expand knowledge sharing; however most government organizations struggle to take advantage of these opportunities.
Hurricane Preparedness
Make sure you are prepared for hurricane season before it is here. Join in this Digital Communities teleconference and gain insight on how to prepare from experts who have been on the ground during major hurricanes.
Kofax Analytics for Capture
Does your agency struggle to add Business Intelligence to your capture operations?
View All


Featured White Papers & Reports

Government-to-Government IT Services: What Works and What's Left to Work Out

This Digital Communities white paper highlights discussions with IT officials in four counties that have adopted shared services models. Our aim was to learn about the obstacles these governments have faced when it comes to shared services and what it takes to overcome those roadblocks. We also spoke with several members of the IT industry who have thought long and hard about these issues. The paper offers some best practices for shared government-to-government services, but also points out challenges that government and industry still must overcome before this model gains widespread adoption.


View Full Library

Events

GTC East

Don't miss this opportunity to see the latest in digital government solutions, keep abreast of current policy issues and network with key government executives, technologists and industry specialists.

View All Events