Fire departments to share grant

By Denise Dick

The information will be available immediately rather than firefighters having to leaf through a book to find it.

POLAND — All 20 Mahoning County fire departments will share in a $600,000 federal grant aimed at allowing firefighters to access information about structures before and as they respond to calls.

Chief David “Chip” Comstock Jr. of the Western Reserve Joint Fire District said money from the federal Department of Homeland Security will be used to buy computers for fire vehicles. The fire district covers Poland village and township.

“They will allow us to access information similar to what police officers are able to do in their cruisers,” Comstock said.

He estimated that the grant would buy 100 computers — mobile data terminals, like laptops — for departments from large to small.

With the computers, information such as hazardous material stored in a building, locations of entrances and cross streets may be communicated by the dispatcher to the computer in the truck.

Austintown Fire Chief Andrew Frost Jr. said his department keeps a book in each fire truck that contains that information. It’s called a pre-plan book.

“But they have to pull it out, leaf through it and find the information,” Frost said. “With the computers, it will just pop up.”

Robert Tieche, chief of the Cardinal Joint Fire District, which includes Canfield city and township, said his department has been using the computers for about two years.

When a call goes out, the information is sent to the touch-screen computers, allowing firefighters to access a floor plan of the building and other data such as if and where hazardous material is stored there. The computers also provide directions to a call location and track the truck’s location, Tieche said.

“It just gives you so much more information,” he said.

Both Tieche and Comstock said the computers will also enable building and call specifics to be communicated between departments such as when one department is providing mutual aid to another.

“If Boardman and Poland fire departments are responding to a call in Canfield for example, they’ll be able to bring up all of that pre-plan information,” Tieche said.

Comstock said the regional grant was competitive, and the economic condition of the area was among the criteria considered.

“It’s just going to be such a big plus for us” Tieche said of the computers.

denise_dick@vindy.com