In the fire service, staying connected is not just important- it’s critical. Connectivity enables accurate location tracking, situational awareness, and real-time updates, giving crews the information they need to make informed decisions in dynamic environments.

Today’s structure fires aren’t the same ones your grandparents- or even your parents- faced 50 years ago. After World War II, most homes were filled with furnishings made from natural materials like solid wood, cotton, and wool. These fuels ignited more slowly, released less heat, and gave firefighters time to get under the smoke to make the rescue or put the fire out.

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.

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

It’s easy to be provincial when you live on the West Coast. All of our sun, the mountains, the ocean… Indianapolis may not be a likely destination for the typical world traveler. In fact, Indy is one of the hippest cities we visit: great food, INSANE jazz, fun clubs and great drinks. Indy pride spills over as hipster kids and upwardly mobile millenials command the city, or at least the Mass Ave portion of the city. The best part? Wait for it…