The Marysville Fire Department in Marysville, MI selects On-Scene Xplorer to provide advanced mapping and pre-incident planning capabilities in their apparatus.
“We also included our Firehouse to On-Scene Xplorer converter so the department may maintain inspection data in a records management package like Firehouse, but make use of the data in tactical situation in the vehicles with On-Scene Xplorer.” said John Fix, President of Iron Compass.
Iron Compass also enhanced the St. Clair County GIS database with the addition of over 5,000 building footprints for Marysville and the surrounding areas.
Three fire departments in Humboldt County, California selected On-Scene Xplorer as their next-generation mapping and pre-planning software platform. Arcata Fire Protection District, Eureka Fire Department, and Humboldt No. 1 Fire Protection District joined forces for the implementation.
Included with On-Scene Xplorer software, the departments also acquired new satellite imagery for the area to assist with the mapping of over 10,000 structures for use in On-Scene Xplorer.
Iron Compass will also be providing map books in PDF format that will be printed and for use in the apparatus that do not have computers.
Our business needs a little more elbow room so we are “moving on up, to the east side!” We will be relocating our office within Liberty Place; moving from suite 117 to suite 239. Please note that tomorrow Friday March 26 our phone system will be down for a brief period while the lines are switch to the new office.
Effective Monday March 30th our new address will be:
313 W Liberty St
Suite 239
Lancaster, PA 17603
“The larger space will give us room to grow while continuing to serve our existing customers” explained John Fix, president of Iron Compass. “We’re excited about the new space and the staff is getting a jump on the move today, so I gotta go get some pizza!”
Iron Compass has developed new technology called “Dispatch Monitor” to bridge the communication between emergency dispatch centers and the in-vehicle mapping and pre-incident planning solution On-Scene Xplorer 2.6.
The “Dispatch Monitor” technology is built to provide flexibility to accomodate the large variety of emergency dispatch systems on the market. On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 with Dispatch Monitor will allow emergency responders to receive, display, and automatically locate calls from within OSX.
“Our customers have been asking for this interface,” noted John Fix, President of Iron Compass. “So we developed the technology for the OSX 2.6 release. It is customizable so we can put it in place in many situation where direct access to dispatch data is not available.”
One example of limited access to dispatch data is being tested in the final beta at several local fire departments. In this case, the emergency dispatch center provides a “rip-n-run” station printer application. Dispatch Monitor is configured to intercept the dispatch data from the application to the printer. Dispatch Monitor parses the data and sends it to each apparatus that is listed on the dispatch.
“When a responder climbs into the rig, the call information is displayed in OSX 2.6 and they click “go” to draw the location on the map. This saves time and eliminates any potential memory lapses that may occur,” added Fix.
Once the beta program is completed, the technology will be rolled out to existing On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 customers.
On-Scene Xplorer 2.6, Iron Compass’s in-vehicle tactical mapping and pre-incident planning system for emergency responders is now in final beta testing. On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 improves on the On-Scene Xplorer 2.5 release with significant enhancements to keep pre-incident plans and mapping data syncronized within an organization. Receiving calls from CAD (dispatching) has also been enabled.
“Departments want to receive calls thru OSX from PSAPs, so we have enabled this functionality. If call centers are able to provide digital call data, we can use that within OSX and dispatched locations can be mapped automatically” said John Fix, president of Iron Compass. “Also, with the new data replication functionality, it will be very easy to keep mapping data and pre-plans up to date in all the apparatus within a department without going from vehicle to vehicle.”
On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 is a tactical mapping and pre-incident planning software solution designed by Iron Compass for use by emergency responders. On-Scene Xplorer enables emergency responders to quickly find and navigate to dispatched locations and plan emergency response strategies before arriving on the scene.
Night-mode for the map display and software interface was added to On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 to reduce the light coming off the displays in the vehicles. Plus many enhancements and improvements have been made based on the feedback from the user community.
On-Scene Xplorer 2.6 beta program should wrap up before the end of October and will then be released to current users and included with new installations.
Would you ever just blow up your computer to see if it would still work? A journalist in the U.K. decided to blow up a Panasonic Toughbook to see if it would take the abuse. Well, it came through just fine.
Don’t believe us? Just watch the video by clicking here
The Willow Street Fire Company in Willow Street, PA was awarded a US Department of Homeland Security AFG (Assistance to Fire Fighers Grant) grant to install On-Scene Xplorer in their apparatus.
“Willow Street has one of the largest retirement communities in Pennsylvania and is also experiencing residential and commercial growth. These pressures require the department have more information when they respond to calls”, said John Fix, president of Iron Compass. “The area outside of Willow Street is very rural, and sadly every year there are barn fires. OSX will be a big help navigating to those mutual aid calls.”
The installation will include Panasonic Toughbook-30 fully rugged computers mounted in their two engines, truck, rescue, and chief’s vehicles. Willow Street also plans to have Iron Compass pre-plan the large multi-building, multi-location retirement community.
Visit the company’s web site by clicking here.
