Whether the Corona Fire Department (CFD) is fighting a wildfire, searching for a lost hiker, or responding to a traffic accident, the more information they have about the situation, the more effectively they can do their jobs. They needed a mobile situational awareness platform that would let them put all critical information — including footage from their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — in one place, to visualize it and easily share it across the response team.

Corona, California is a relatively small city, but its fire department faces some unique challenges. Like most fire departments in the U.S., CFD extinguishes burning buildings, rescues people from hazardous situations and responds to EMS calls. Unlike most fire departments, Corona borders the Cleveland National Forest — a 460,000 acre park with a variety of recreational activities, plenty of places for hikers to get lost or injured, and more than 110 wildfires each year.

Whether Corona firefighters are battling a wildfire, searching for a lost hiker, or responding to a traffic accident, the more information they have about the situation, the more effectively they can coordinate their efforts and do their jobs. That information comes from several sources. Data from the 911 dispatcher comes through the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, which firefighters access via laptop. Until recently, each truck had a single smartphone, which teams used to access contact lists and resource apps. The department also has four UAVs, which they use to assess wildfires and to aid with search and rescue.

CFD has deployed Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), a tool created for the United States military to improve situational awareness for troops and to help commanders plan successful missions. ATAK layers data from multiple sources and UAV video onto one 3D map that personnel can view in the field and edit as they go. CFD equipped firefighters with Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones and commanders with Galaxy Tab S4 tablets to take full advantage of ATAK in the field.

While CFD was battling the historic Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, Johansson got an unexpected call about the California National Guard’s MQ9 Reaper UAV. “The guy asked, ‘What if I could bring that MQ9 video into your hands on a mobile device?’ I said, ‘That would be awesome.’ I drove to Walmart and bought the nicest Samsung tablet I could get. The next day, I had that video overlaid on our operations map, and it was awesome.”

Johansson was looking at ATAK — a tool created by the U.S. military to improve situational awareness for troops and help leaders plan successful missions. Developed by the Air Force Research Lab, ATAK had recently become available to federal, state and local governments.

PAR Government, an integrator that was involved in the development of ATAK, has created a robust enterprise backend solution called Team Connect that enables public safety agencies to share situational awareness data across their ATAK-enabled devices. Using APIs, Team Connect can tie other data sources into ATAK, including fire service technology like rapid SOS, systems, aircraft sensor data and even CAD systems. This way, first responders can view CAD data on the Team Connect map.

As of 2019, ATAK has an estimated 175,000 military and civilian users across numerous public safety agencies. Johansson wanted CFD to be one of them, so he enlisted the help of Mike Leckliter, a firefighter who manages technology for the department. Leckliter had been making the case for Android for years, citing both cost savings and flexibility as advantages. Together, they convinced the department to switch to Samsung.

CFD is now using approximately 45 Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones and Galaxy Tab S4 tablets. Each truck has two tablets, and each team has one smartphone. They can also screen mirror the tablets and phones to a larger display in the command vehicle.

• Durability: CFD uses Juggernaut cases for its Galaxy S10 smartphones and RAM Mounts GDC Intelliskin cases for the Galaxy tablets, but Johansson says the devices are durable on their own. “The Galaxy S10s are IP68 rated so that helps them stand up to the harsh environments firefighters face, but even if they weren’t durable and didn’t have cases, it would still be cheaper to replace a few broken devices every year than to use our old solution. We have five spare tablets that we keep up and running, but we haven’t needed them so far.”

 

• Employee satisfaction: Until last year, a majority of CFD firefighters were iOS users, and some were resistant to switching. Johansson says that changed quickly. “Now that we’re on Android, they’re like, ‘Oh, it can do this? Oh, it can do that? Wow, that’s amazing.’ People are asking which Android device they should buy. I get that question daily.”

Going forward, CFD will continue to look for innovative ways to improve situational awareness with mobile solutions, Leckliter says. “Our IT department has some very forward thinkers, and we see the Android platform as a way to innovate and move the department into the future,” he says. “Any way that we can take technology to enhance our product delivery, we try to embrace that.”