Riverside County Fire Department InformationTechnology Departrment designs,
develops, maintains and supports all of the computer systems and networks within CAL FIRE/Riverside
County Fire. With over 100 remote facilities and 600 users, Fire IT provides support to every
fire station, administrative center, air base, camp, Emergency Operations Center and planning
section as well as the Emergency Command Center (ECC), Alternate ECC’s and three mobile
communications units within Riverside County’s area of responsibility. These systems and
networks provide a platform for a wide variety of applications used by the department to carry out
its emergency response and management mission, such as; Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD), station
dispatch printers, Operational Staffing System, GIS systems and applications and Email
system.
Fire IT’s most recent accomplishment include the deployment of two major systems to
improve the response times of first responders to emergencies.
In the summer of 2005, the department completed a rollout of its station printer
project. This project involved placing a compact, receipt-style thermal printer at each fire
station. These printers activate and print out detailed incident information for the first
responders whenever a dispatch is made from the emergency command center. These devices also
serve as a secondary means of notification for field personnel, increasing the Department’s
redundancy and reliance on a single system. This system has reduced the response time of
personnel responding to emergencies, as well as helped to reduced radio traffic.
In February of 2007, Fire IT released the first production stage of the Department’s
mobile computing platform (MDC). The MDC consists of a rugged laptop, computer- mounted in
fire response vehicles. These computers are equipped with GPS and multiple software packages
to assist fire personnel in locating emergencies, planning initial attacks and performing routine
inspections. They are also equipped with Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL), sending their
location to a central database and allowing each vehicle to view the location of other department
fire response vehicles that are AVL enabled. Additionally, when a station is dispatched the
information is sent from CAD to the MDC, and the MDC uses software application provided by
Geospatial Technologies Inc. (GST Mapper®) to provide a suggested route to the location of the
incident. This provides a tertiary means of notification for redundancy, as well
as being able to instantly suggest the quickest route to the emergency based on speed limits and
distance. The MDC is also a valuable wildland firefighting tool, allowing incident commanders
to instantly obtain accurate information day or night. This system has reduced the response
time of personnel responding to emergencies, and provided incident commanders with real-time
resource allocation information on a multitude of incidents. The Department currently has over
200 MDCs deployed in its fleet.
Riverside County Fire Department InformationTechnology Departrment designs,
develops, maintains and supports all of the computer systems and networks within CAL FIRE/Riverside
County Fire. With over 100 remote facilities and 600 users, Fire IT provides support to every
fire station, administrative center, air base, camp, Emergency Operations Center and planning
section as well as the Emergency Command Center (ECC), Alternate ECC’s and three mobile
communications units within Riverside County’s area of responsibility. These systems and
networks provide a platform for a wide variety of applications used by the department to carry out
its emergency response and management mission, such as; Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD), station
dispatch printers, Operational Staffing System, GIS systems and applications and Email
system.
incident. This provides a tertiary means of notification for redundancy, as well
as being able to instantly suggest the quickest route to the emergency based on speed limits and
distance. The MDC is also a valuable wildland firefighting tool, allowing incident commanders
to instantly obtain accurate information day or night. This system has reduced the response
time of personnel responding to emergencies, and provided incident commanders with real-time
resource allocation information on a multitude of incidents. The Department currently has over
200 MDCs deployed in its fleet.