Since Sunday, the Tablet Command team has been watching for updates and had a difficult time locating maps that displayed the hotspots of the fire and active fire perimeters. We found that the information on other maps was not complete or useful. We decided to make our own with one of the great tools that we use frequently.


Esri provides some excellent tools and one of those tools, ArcGIS Online is used by Tablet Command to support our customers access to agency GIS information. ArcGIS Online is a great way for any agency to create custom web maps with dynamic data within a matter of minutes. We created this web map with Esri ArcGIS Online in about 20 minutes. We have been using it so much that we decided that we should share it with everyone.

One of the most frequent comments we hear about Tablet Command is how simple and easy it is to use. We often hear this as a first reaction from prospective customers after an initial demo of Tablet Command, which is great. But when we hear it from veteran BCs using it 

I love the variety of experiences I have every day as a firefighter. The constant stimulus suits my ADHD personality. On any given day, I could be involved ina house fire, a rope rescue, a wildfire, a terrorist attack (God forbid), or a major earthquake. We train for all of it—in fact, training is the one constant—and there’s instant gratification and constant motion all the time. Hurray dopamine!

Starting a business provides some of the same types of stimulus. It’s an adventure into

If you’ve been thinking of deploying incident management software in your department, here are six key questions you need to consider before making the leap:

1. Is it mobile? 

Having the ability to track an incident from the very first seconds of dispatch from ALL of your devices is key to faster response times and higher situational awareness not just for the IC but for everyone in the department.

2. Does it automate my existing processes?

Some incidents are just worse than others.

When a high-speed train leaves the rails or a tornado rips the roof off the school gym, first responders face the confusion of a complicated incident scene. How many dead? Who is alive? Which of the living needs our help first?

Incidents like these require a different sort of response.

Sometimes a picture is worth much more than a thousand words. Especially when those words are taking up valuable radio bandwidth.

It continues to be VERY busy at work these days. I responded to 7 legitimate working fires for the month of May. And three of those have been two alarm fires. It’s been a really crazy run!

Two things happened last week in my life as a Fire Captain that simply could not have happened a generation ago.

Here’s a funny fact about entrepreneurs: The most common reason people start businesses is to avoid working for others.