5 minute read
TABLET COMMAND
Tablet Command & THE
of Fire Technology
Firefighter entrepreneurs Andy Bozzo and Will Pigeon embarked on a journey into the tech world to provide an innovative solution
in the prevention of workplace tragedies, streamline fire incident command and scene control, and ultimately, answer the question of how firefighters can optimize their resources and make for the best onscene fire management possible.
Andy has 24 years of experience in the fire service in California and Washington State and is currently a Fire Captain with a large Northern California Fire Department. Will began in the fire service in 1998 and previously served the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District as an Assistant Fire Chief. He oversaw the Communications Division of the Fire District including the 911 Center, Radio, Telecomm, and Information Technology.
Like many great ideas that inspire change, it began with a story of tragedy, something founder Andy Bozzo says is one of the main reasons he has committed the last 12 years to the growth and success of Tablet Command.
“WE HAD TWO LINE OF DUTY DEATHS IN 2007, THE TENTH YEAR OF MY CAREER. THE FIREFIGHTERS DIED IN A WAY THAT SEEMED A VERY SIMPLE, A BREAD-AND-BUTTER FIRE ON PAPER - BUT IT WASN’T.
It was a chain of events that led to their tragic demise…they were doing the same things we always do at these fires – it's not like they did anything exotic,” explains Andy.
“If I had to point a finger of blame, it would
be at how the call came in. The house had been monitored by a private, out-of-state alarm company. The residents, elderly and infirm, got a call from the alarm company asking if they were ok, and they said ‘No. There’s a fire!’ The private alarm company with a dispatch center in Florida called our dispatch center and reported a fire alarm. That’s a huge difference in nuance. There is also a huge difference in response. So there they were a single-engine response, rolling up the street and seeing a column of smoke. They were behind the eight ball with two residents trapped so they went into rescue mode."
“The other unfortunate event was the way the home was constructed with eight to ten-foot ceilings that held the heat in, plus a rain roof built on top. When the vent crews went in to ventilate, they let out steam and smoke, but not the true heat in the room. Ultimately, the fire turned on the firefighters and flashed over when they were searching for the second victim.”
WORLD OF FIREFIGHTING
AND INCIDENT COMMAND.”
Andy remembers the point in 2010 when the idea for the company was born. “I started seeing touch screen technology come to life. One day I was lying on my couch, playing Words with Friends, taking a tile, and dragging a tile, and I thought
‘HOLY SHIT’ THIS IS LIKE A COMMAND BOARD – BUT DIGITAL!
The person I'm playing against knows what moves I just made. It resembled the analog command boards that were already out there. Why couldn’t we adapt this for fire and put it in real-time and put in an interface that would be recognizable for the old salty guys?
“Ultimately, I wrote an essay/product overview of what I thought it should look like. I started making drawings and realized I had no idea how to get this on a digital platform. It was a double-edged sword: we were
making technology for users who weren’t tech-savvy. We needed to make a system that was simple and recognizable for the folks who were going to want to throw it in the trash!”
Andy spent a lot of time ruminating before contacting cofounder Will Pigeon. “I called Will and he was impressed by the idea. He had computing and programming expertise and said we need to do this right, with real programmers who understood how the fire service worked."
“A couple of years into it, we had a product in the app store – not just a beta product - that we were showing around. We approached the Division Chief at a large, well-established fire department, a man with lots of notches in his belt. We thought it was time. We walked in and met an intimidating man, who said ‘Sit down and show me your shit. Then, I’ll tell you what’s fucked up about it.’ And added, ‘Technology in the fire service is oil and water.’ But we showed him the technology, and he said we’d nailed it. He also told us it would
never make it through the political ladders of the departments but six months later, we got a call from his department saying he wanted to implement the
product. We took it to conventions and received the same feedback from other departments.”
What began as a tablet incident command management platform quickly showed its potential to double as a
mobile data computer. Andy believes it’s one of the biggest initiatives they’ve ever taken on. “We realized that we needed a mobile product like Tablet Command that could fit in the palm of a hand to use for incident notification and situational awareness. Now, between the Incident Command platform in the Chief’s platform and the computers in the rigs, there is seamless info and situational awareness. There are also other aspects of info available, like live camera footage, the ability to integrate with drone footage, and high-res mapping. We have the ability to show pre-plans. So, if we encounter a massive apartment structure on fire, we can pull up the map of the structure and plan our next moves.”
WHAT DOES THE
DO?TECHNOLOGY
Tablet Command provides a comprehensive suite of mobile solutions to support emergency response and incident management. This enhances situational awareness, operational efficiency, and the safety of the public and first responders. It shows units in real-time while leaving radio bandwidth for emergencies. Users like the drop-down tactical worksheets. At a commercial structure fire, it instructs users on what they need, creating buckets for placement of resources to ensure that they’re tactically on point for that incident. For example, co-founder Andy Bozzo was on the Caldor fire in the Lake Tahoe region which had a morning briefing every day before going out on the line. Seeing the mapping and resources was a game-changer. “It’s so on point” is the feedback that the co-founders receive. The technology gives the incident manager the ability to more readily look up and manage any analog or radio sorting that needs to happen. It avoids the need for an incident commander to get on the radio to receive a rundown of his or her units, thereby taking up airtime which could be better used for emergency radio traffic.
