Sharing information with several fire departments in one county can be challenging. The Campbell County (KY) Office of Emergency Management (OEM) used to rely on email, telephone, text messaging, and social media to communicate with ten fire departments in their county. After a recommendation from a meeting of fire chiefs, Campbell County OEM looked at the First Arriving digital dashboard platform.
Deputy Director James Sparks said the OEM is a 3-man operation in contact with fire departments and daily communication between everyone was important. “The big reason we went with the dashboards is so they can see everything on our dashboard and vice versa. We are on call 24/7. If something major happens, dispatch can call us, and they can see our board who is on call.” Deputy Director Sparks added, “We can see each fire department page, and they can see ours. They can see our equipment and the resources available to them.”
First Arriving’s digital dashboards were recommended to the OEM from a committee meeting of fire chiefs. Nine of the ten fire departments in Campbell County are using the dashboards, and they saw that OEM could also benefit from the communication platform. Campbell County OEM conducts 30 training events a year. Through the First Arriving dashboard platform the fire departments across the county are aware of that training and other essential information.
“First Arriving has been good for us, to help do our boards and make them specific for us,” said Deputy Director Sparks. “Being different from the fire departments, we’re responsible for getting information out and putting together reports,” Sparks says that First Arriving is coming up with things to make them and the fire departments communicate better. He added that the technical side of First Arriving has been great at creating or updating things as OEM does more work with the dashboards.
Sparks said once the duties and responsibilities of OEM had been explained the technical part and valuable integrations came along fine. “It has been great so far. We have 20 to 30 traffic cameras incorporated into our dashboards. The fire departments see them as well, and we get every Active911 alert from every fire department.”
Campbell County’s 3-man OEM is responsible for the preparedness and delivery of emergency plans and resources in case of a disaster or other major emergency. The First Arriving digital dashboard platform allows the OEM to stay in touch with the county fire departments and share information that is easy, efficient, and beneficial to public safety.
Integrations:
Active911
Facebook
Google Sheets
Google Slides
Traffic Cams
Twitter
