The Fire Department Seeking Reliable Tools They Could Trust

The Boise Fire Department relies on technology to protect the over 800,000 residents of their Idaho town. When their previous safety devices became less reliable regarding area monitoring, equipment functionality, and customer service, the team started looking elsewhere. Before Blackline, if they had an issue with a monitor, they would send it in and wouldn’t see it again for two or three months. When every minute counts in a rescue, equipment you can’t rely on doesn’t cut it.

Boise Fire switched to Blackline Safety, adopting wearable devices on every engine in the city, as well as EXO 8 area monitors for their hazmat teams. All 19 fire stations and over 300 employees rely on Blackline to help them get the job done safely. Reliable access to real-time information now helps teams narrow their searches during incidents to enable faster rescues. “It’s the difference between saving a life and recovering a body,” said Captain Zebell.

Blackline’s cloud-connected software also helps Boise Fire with public event monitoring, which instantly begins feeding data back to the decision-making team. Boise Fire’s hazmat team can then log in remotely from across the city to help interpret readings and provide subject matter expertise to people on the ground. Now the first thing Boise Fire does when they hear of a possible incident is start Vlahi’s web-and smartphone-based CERES plume modelling to get ahead of the situation.

The ability to easily replace swappable multi-gas cartridges keeps the monitors functional, and when further help is needed, Blackline’s capacity to troubleshoot remotely means not having to ship off their monitors for months at a time.

In his over 24 years as a firefighter, Captain Zebell says he’s seen the technology progress “leaps and bounds” since adopting Blackline. Even Boise Fire’s first use of Blackline devices proved the reason for the switch. When a propane vessel wrecked on the side of the highway, the department had to flare the propane to safely dispose of the chemical. They dropped their brand-new, quick connect to cloud Blackline remote area monitors and the real-time information provided by the devices helped the team protect the community safely and efficiently.

Other benefits have included:

• Quick decisions backed by real-time data: Real-time data accessible to every truck in the city means experts can weigh in from afar to help teams on the ground make key decisions without wasting precious time.  

• Safer communities and public events: Combining Blackline’s gas detection data with plume modelling has made area monitoring more trustworthy.

• Devices working when and where they need them: Superior customer service means no more waiting for easy fixes. Remote troubleshooting has kept Boise Fire on track.