Looking to find an easy and reliable way to get information to its firefighters, the City of Simpsonville (SC) Fire Department replaced the old methods with the more visible and engaging First Arriving digital dashboard platform inside their firehouses.
Over 60 personnel across six firehouses protect the city of Simpsonville, a portion of Greenville County, and approximately 55,000 residents. The fire department provides fire, EMS, technical rescue, fire prevention, and community education. The response area includes a broad mix of residential, commercial, and educational properties within approximately 30 square miles.
The Challenge
Fire department uniform personnel work a 24-on/48-off schedule with three shifts staffing engine, truck, rescue, hazmat, and technical rescue apparatus. The department has seen a significant increase in call volume over the past 19 years.
Battalion Chief Danny Gulledge said that previously the fire department relied on email, scheduling notifications, and logbooks for their primary means of communication. “We found that we were always trying to get consistent information out versus the old ‘telephone, telegraph, tell a firefighter’ method of how information gets around,” said Battalion Chief Gulledge.
The Solution
While looking for a way to improve communication, Battalion Chief Gulledge found First Arriving after seeing it used at a neighboring fire department and through a Google search. Once the First Arriving digital dashboard platforms arrived at their firehouses, getting information out and staying visible to Simpsonville firefighters was easy.
The Results
“The dashboards are a much better way of sending out information and announcements, especially training information, especially due to COVID,” said Gulledge. The fire department has one dashboard in service in all six firehouses and the administration building. The integrations the fire department has are weather, Emergency Reporting, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. “Working with First Arriving has been good. Even though it is technical, it is so easy to update that one person does it,” said Gulledge. He added that they plan to add more integrations and update the timing of the slides to get more out of their digital dashboard platform.
