The Tablet Command team is committed to evaluating legacy public safety technology strategies and developing innovative solutions focused on the unique needs of the response environment. Easy access to maps annotated with current and accurate incident information for first responders is one of the challenges that has not been addressed to date. Traditionally, incident maps provided a historic record of events and conditions, as opposed to real time intelligence that can be revised and updated from the field in real time.  To address this challenge, Tablet Command and Fire Front Solutions collaborated to develop an integration to FireMapper.

Tablet Command and TrainFirefighters.com, two Northern California companies founded by highly experienced firefighters, have entered into a powerful partnership that will result in better and safer fireground tactical leadership for first responders across North America.

Record Breaking Wildfires

In recent years, record-breaking wildfires in the western United States have posed a complex set of new challenges to incident managers. Not only have these fires been the largest in history but they have also created an enormous cost for states like Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona.  Many factors suggest that these fires are only growing larger and occuring at an unrelenting frequency; in fact, every year has been hotter, and each successive fire season has gotten bigger and lasted longer than the last.  Experts widely agree that we’ve entered into an era of apocalyptic “Mega Fires”.

The Tablet Command team has been hard at work developing and deploying new features to better meet the needs of the responders we serve. The pace of change has accelerated over the past several months, and we thought we should provide a review of the highlights in the event that you’ve missed something.

Personnel accountability on the emergency scene has long posed challenges for the fireground Incident Commander (IC). The fire service has employed a number of low tech solutions in an effort to enhance accountability; T Cards, Personnel Accountability Tags (PAT), Passport Systems, and Accountability Officers to name just a few. None of these solutions have provided the real time accuracy required to achieve any meaningful measure of accountability.

Agencies can combine the power of Tablet Command, ESRI’s Survey 123 and ArcGIS Online to quickly collect and display geospatial data.  These powerful collaborative tools can be used for a wide variety of situations including damage assessments, marking hazardous occupancies, and identifying safe zones and lookouts during wildland pre-incident planning.

As first responders around the world cope with the impacts of  COVID 19, Tablet Command continues to support our customers by providing access to expanded Tablet Command services at no additional cost for the duration of this emergency. Tablet Command is resilient by design, and the Tablet Command team and infrastructure are agile and well positioned for events of this kind. We are committed to doing everything we can to support the public safety community and response personnel.

In response to customer demand, we have created a bundled basic version of Tablet Command Enterprise.  Not surprisingly, we call it Tablet Command Basic!  

While the North American wildland fire season has wound down with the arrival of winter, our attention turns to Australia where fires are devastating the entire country. Let's look back at how North American Tablet Command customers used mapping, location, and incident management tools to enhance operational efficiency and responder safety while gaining an advantage during the 2019 Fire Season.