As firefighters in Weymouth, Massachusetts, rushed to a house fire on School Street earlier this month, they were already ahead of the game by the time they got there.
"Gaining awareness is the number one thing that is occurring in the first initial minutes of a fire response," said Weymouth Fire Lt. John Lombardo. "We do our best to rapidly gain information and gain an understanding of what is going on."
For firefighters, information is crucial in those first few minutes as they respond to a fire -- How many people are inside? Are there any pets? What about hazards firefighters should know about?
For decades, those firefighters had incomplete information at best.
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"The hazards that we find inside structures, again, is always changing, and it is always becoming incrementally more dangerous," said Lombardo.
Looking to bridge that information gap, the Weymouth Fire Department recently teamed up with First Due to implement its Community Connect Program. Weymouth residents go online, answer a series of questions, and create a portal to share with the fire department.
The company says the program uses the same security and encryption as online banking.
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"To have a little bit of an advantage before that chaos and that hecticness, to have a little bit of a sneak peak, is immensely helpful to us," said Lombardo. "It is a huge leap and bound from when it used to be a bell and horses driving down the road."
For the Weymouth Fire Department, as soon as a registered house calls 911, all that information pops up for dispatchers. Firefighters can also access it on tablets inside the fire truck, giving them information to study as they race to the emergency.
"The hazards that we find inside structures is always changing, and it is always becoming incrementally more dangerous," said Lombardo. "To have the ability to identify these hazards in advance of an emergency is immensely helpful to the safety of our residents and our members."
