BY MARK J. FINUCANE AND BRAD PRICE
Engine 2, Engine 3, Engine 4, Ladder 1: Respond to an alarm at the Veterans Administration (VA) Center, Building #162, domiciliary on Maple Drive. Color code blue.
On receipt of this dispatch, the apparatus drivers quickly check the color-coded map of the VA Center hanging on the station wall to verify the building’s location while the firefighters don their turnout gear. After glancing at the map a moment, the driver pinpoints the exact building. His eyes are immediately directed to the blue color-coded buildings located in a specific area on the map. The driver confirms the building number and the quickest route and then efficiently moves to the driver’s seat and is en route.
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When responding to a large complex of buildings, you can lose time if you have difficulty finding the affected building and cannot immediately determine the best way of getting to the building. Engine and ladder drivers may find the number of similar looking buildings confusing and may be further delayed by one-way or limited-access roads. Such situations are commonly found at university/college campuses, industrial sites, hospital complexes, and VA centers.
COLOR-CODED MAPS SAVE TIME
To help ensure better response times, the Johnson City (TN) Fire Department has mounted large color-coded maps of the VA Center (see Figure 1) and the local university, East Tennessee State University, on the fire station walls. Smaller sized maps (8 1/2 2 14) are carried in a prefire planning notebook on the apparatus. Our local emergency medical service also uses these maps to assist in their response. The maps help the drivers to pinpoint the buildings’ locations, which helps them also to quickly assess the most efficient route to that structure.
Since the apparatus drivers have the color-coded maps, the university’s public safety officers and the VA Center’s police department no longer have to escort the firefighters to the incident site. The fire alarms are received at a central alarm annunciation panel at each of the respective police headquarters.
The university’s dispatcher calls our E-911 Communications Center on receipt of the alarm. The dispatcher has been trained to relay the critical response information concerning the type of call, the location’s color code, and the building number. The dispatcher then sends the university’s public safety officers to the building in question.
The fire alarm for the VA Center, which also is received through the annunciation panel at the locality’s police headquarters, is wired directly into our department’s E-911 Communications Center. The alarm information is displayed through a digitized system that shows the building’s name, address, color code, and building number on a screen. The E-911 telecommunicator immediately retrieves the data and sends the alarm to the fire stations.
The VA police officers are dispatched by their headquarters. The officers proceed to the particular building and investigate the situation and then relay preliminary size-up information through our 911 center or over the fire department radio frequency. The dispatch information the university’s police emergency dispatchers and the VA Center’s engineering department send to our communications center greatly enhances our response time. In addition to the building’s name, assigned building number, street, and color code, the dispatch information may include the locations of hydrants and fire department connections.
Johnson City’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) office designed the color-coded maps. The maps are based on drawings of the building complexes. The buildings and rights-of-way are digitized and stored as layers in a software package. Each building is assigned a unique ID number and a color code according to our department’s specifications. Text is added for the streets and parking lots, to designate the staging area for the initial fire department response.
In most cases, geographic location is the rationale for the color-code assignment. Buildings in proximity to each other are assigned the same color. The female and male dormitories at East Tennessee State University have their unique color codes, since they are life safety target hazards.
The maps have helped us to keep up with the changes and additions to these two complexes through the years. The VA Center grounds, for example, now are home to a new hospital and a domiciliary. The university has added an on-site medical school.
The maps should be updated annually unless changes have been made to the site, in which case the map should be updated immediately.
Mark J. Finucane is a 15-year veteran of the fire service, is a captain assigned to the City of Johnson City (TN) Fire Department Training Division. He is a state-certified firefighter II and fire officer I and has a bachelor of science degree from East Tennesses State University.
Brad Price has been a technician with the City of Johnson City (TN) GIS Division since 1994. He has a bachelor of science degree in geography from East Tennessee State University.
