Realtime Hydrant Management Benefits and Features
The vast majority of Fire Departments have an arms-length relationship with the public works or water management department or organization that manages Fire Hydrants. Issues with hydrants discovered by the Fire Department are phoned in. When hydrants are being shutoff or brought on line, either permanently or for maintenance, it is usually communicated via email or phone call. Stations get notified, and update this information on a whiteboard.
But wouldn’t it make so much more sense if, when a hydrant goes offline, it immediately displays on a tablet or laptop mounted to each apparatus as a big X on the map? And when a crew finishes work and turns the hydrant back on, it immediately displays as available on any apparatus heading towards a fire near there?
That is what Real-time Hydrant Management is all about. We can work with those managing the hydrants and water supply, integrating with their software to automatically receive updates as they work, so we can update our maps. If that is not practical, or to get the benefits before such integration can be implemented, there are other alternatives. The person in dispatch who receives communication about hydrants going in/out of service can use our application to mark them in or out of service manually with ease. Again, no need to call each fire station and update a board, this information becomes instantly available in our Mobile Assist client software.