Fire departments are tasked with the responsibility of maintaining public safety and protection. As part of their duties—they’re required to act and respond appropriately to a number of unexpected events and emergencies. Although teams cannot always be fully prepared for unforeseen circumstances—they must practice necessary precautions while always being mindful of extraordinary occurrences.
Pre-incident planning is a critical tool for improving operational effectiveness and maximizing available resources. Preplanning can help teams maximize emergency team capabilities to better manage natural disasters and dangerous incidences.The problem is many fire agencies lack the disaster preparedness tools necessary for managing team resources. Fire teams often rely upon antiquated strategies based upon outdated information and technologies. Having the right plan in place ahead of time will aid teams in developing strategies for allocating resources to necessary tasks and plans.
How Preplanning Can Improve Fire Agency Effectiveness
Public capabilities can vary from county to county. Areas especially prone to natural disasters and danger zones must carefully distribute manpower in order to maximize agency effectiveness. Fire teams should use strategies geared towards eliminating unnecessary procedures and processes.
Preplanning can assist fire agencies with a number of incident responses including:
- Structural fires
- Wildland fires
- Hazardous materials incident
- Active shooter response
- Special events such as festivals, sporting events, or concerts
- Ongoing public health concerns such as COVID-19 related incidents
- Evacuation planning and more
Solutions should be created which utilize public safety resources while protecting the safety of fire team members. The problem is many departments use outdated preplanning materials and rely upon various tactics based around monotonous information-gathering processes.
Common Preplanning Problems
Many fire agencies lack the knowledge and resources necessary to adequately assess public information. Departments often lack internal knowledge and capabilities needed to comprehend structures and components. Relying upon old paperback binders filled with outdated information is both inefficient and highly inaccurate. Furthermore, creating written preplans exhausts valuable resources that may be better allocated elsewhere.
Problems typically faced when creating preplanning procedures include:
- High amounts of human capital and resources
- Tedious, manual and slow processes
- Having to review original blueprints and creating paper markups of the technology
- Completed plans require heavy oversight and review prior to final approval
Hand drawing maps and manually updating documents into outdated databases is challenging and time consuming. Digital preplanning tools can help solve a number of problems that typically plague fire agencies.
How Intterra Can Help Create Effective Preplans
Digital preplanning allows agencies to optimize resources towards fire response instead of continually performing monotonous tasks and duties. Easy-to-use software eliminates the need to update and review existing preplanning policies and procedures.
Intterra’s software is designed to improve incident management and hazard response without the monotony of traditional preplanning processes. Using GIS and simple interface—Intterra allows users to create preplans instantly instead of days.
Industry standard symbiology empowers decision makers to understand potential safety risks while reducing the costs associated with existing manual processes. Intterra helps ensure procedures are continually updated using streamlined preplanning processes.
To learn more about achieving an all-hazards approach to emergency preparedness, download our complete guide to preplanning.
