By digitally mapping building layouts and gathering key site details during on-site visits, Jacksonville Fire Department crews aim to boost

By Michelle Dillon\n
Jacksonville Daily Progress,

JACKSONVILLE, Texas — The Jacksonville Fire Department is taking proactive steps to ensure quick response times and best outcomes in a fire emergency.

Fire Marshal Jeremy Pate conducts regularly scheduled state-mandated inspections of local businesses, but firefighters are now conducting a different type of inspection of their own. According to Fire Chief Paul Findley, this pre-incident planning is key to more efficient responses in times of emergency.

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Pate says his role is to ensure building code is being followed.

The visits by local firefighters are to familiarize themselves with the layouts of buildings, gather information such as the number of employees, location of breaker boxes, existing alarm panels or fire suppression systems.

“It’s not a new concept, and I think it’s been done here before,” Findley said. “Pre-incident planning has been around forever, but it normally would wind up residing in a three-ring binder, not on a shelf in an office, but stuck in a compartment space somewhere on a firetruck and seldom, if ever, got opened.”

Now, the information is integrated into an electronic records management system along with Pate’s inspection reports.

“If our people are more familiar with the buildings that they’re responsible to protect 24/7, in the event we have an incident, they’re going to perform better because they know what to expect before they get there,” Findley said. “What the software does, it incorporates everything. It incorporates past incident data, pre-incident planning data, fire inspection data.”

While having every firefighter shift visit each business, Pate noted that isn’t feasible.

“What’s good about the program, the digital part of it, whether B shift goes to the building, if they’re able to put it in the computer, then A shift and C shift can at least look at the plan of it and any information filed,” Pate said.

Findley said the most important aspect is for the firefighters to personally view the buildings and familiarize themselves with layouts and information regarding each building.

“Even if we didn’t have a computer program, just the guys walking through, their memory is so great that they can picture things once they go in it,” Pate said. “They may have been in it one time and then they go in on a fire and their memory kicks in.”

Local firefighters have been visiting businesses, familiarizing themselves with the layouts of buildings, since late February or early March of this year. The visits, which will be continuously ongoing, are being conducted in three phases. Hotels, motels and apartment buildings were visited first and will be visited on an annual basis. High risk/high load businesses, such as the library or newspaper office, are currently being assessed and will be visited every two years. Restaurants, offices and other low-risk businesses will be visited next, with such visits scheduled every three years.

Pate said it’s difficult to visit every business each year, but Findley said it isn’t about the number of businesses they visit each year, but what they are learning through the visits.

“The more knowledgeable the first responders are about what they’re responding to, the better we’re going to perform,” he said. The better equipped we are, the more knowledgeable, the better we’re able to respond to and perform in emergency situations, which means we’re providing a better product to the tax-paying residents.

“The pre-incident planning program is the proactive arm of a reactive body, Most of the time you get the fire department and EMS after you call 911. The emergencies happen and we react. Fire prevention, community risk reduction, pre-incident planning programs, those are all the things we try to do before you dial 911.”

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