Kiwi firefighters still using Wises map books, but not for much longer

Saturday, 7 December 2019

A tatty map book in the footwell of an Auckland fire appliance.

New Zealand firefighters could be set to trade their vintage Wises map books for state-of-the-art tech if a pilot project secures funding.

Crews currently navigate to scenes either using local knowledge, map books or apps on their cellphones.

Old school map books are still a common sight in Kiwi fire engines, but their days could be numbered if a popular new project gets approval to go national (file photo).

They also carry folders of information forms and rely on communications staff to relay over the radio vital details of scenes from 111 callers.

But the new Mobility project could be set to change all that and bring crews into the 21st century.

Many fire crews currently use apps such as Google Maps to find their way to a scene if required (file photo).

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The Mobility project's operations advisor is Kevin McCombe, also a senior station officer at Wigram in Christchurch.

He said the pilot ran on 24 appliances across 15 stations, from Invercargill to Silverdale, in Auckland, and would finish at the end of December.

Feedback had been 'fantastic' and firefighters spoken to by Stuff were uniformly keen on the project being rolled out nationally.

'But like any new technology there's always bugs and bug fixes,' he said.

Firefighters access the system via tablets linked to GPS units to provide real-time routing information as they rushed to scenes.

'It's a real vast increase in situational awareness for officers responding to a call.

'It gives them as much information as we have on the incident's address and the type of incident.'

The tablets also run a real-time feed of information coming into communication centres from members of the public and other agencies.

'So the information coming into centres via 111 can actually be see by the responding officers.'

Police cars responding to incidents have for years had built-in GPS units while their mobile phones offer a range of advanced capabilities.

McCombe said the project's national rollout was contingent on approval from the Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) Executive Leadership Team.

He hoped to present the business case to the team early in the new year.

FENZ strategy and capability development deputy chief executive Russell Wood said the organisation had received positive feedback on the mobility project, which was tracking to its approved schedule and budget.

'They have told us that it improves their situational awareness and allows them to plan more effective incident response.'

The pilot had run since June 2019 and has been successfully used by crews to respond to more than 9000 incidents, he said.