Welcome to RichardSpackmann.com! I post various activities I participate in with the Maple Avenue Fire Department, and personal opinions surrounding my position as Fire Commissioner of the Greenfield Fire District. The most recent entries are listed first, but you can also sort based on the categories listed below, or search by date via the calendar to the lower right. (All times are in Eastern Standard Time [GMT-5])
Tuesday, December 16
Rip and Run Development Update
Testing for my Rip and Run software is proceeding along quite nicely. This month I completed some milestones:
Successful integration with Firetracker software. This will ultimately allow us to upload all the data from county rip and run sheets directly into the Firetracker software - this means the potential to completely remove paperwork from the fire reporting process all together!
Integration with voice message systems. These allow me to take Rip and Run content - for example, the call location and type of emergency, translate it into speech, and then send that audio directly to someone's cell phone. There have been well documented reports of the county paging system not working - so many of our members do not get notified of an emergency. The ability to automatically reach our firefighters via a different medium could be crucial to our organization.
This is could serve in the place of SMS Text Messaging (next on the list) when a member does not have text messaging as part of their cell service plan.
Basically this audio sounds like something you would hear in a public service announcement or some emergency radio test. Click here for a sample:
SMS Text Messaging - text messaging has become a very common form of communication in our society. There are other counties who also afford volunteers the ability to receive emergency dispatches via SMS text messages on their cell phones. My software integrates with a third-party cell carrier, and will send SMS text messages to our members. This functionality is still being developed, but it is anticipated that it will be completed in January.
AIM Messaging - I have developed an AIM bot that will instant message a registered firefighter of a given emergency. Much like the email alert functionality, this is particularly useful to members who are online all day at work for example.
Email Alerts - Rip and Run information is also configured to be automatically emailed to firefighters (those who are subscribed). This is particularly important for those firefighters who work in offices where cell phones may not work (or you aren't permitted to have them), and you are at your desk the majority of the day. This gives you the ability to get notified of emergencies without pagers or cell phones.
Integration with the County is tentatively scheduled to begin in the middle of January - to give everyone a break during the holiday season. Currently, the only Rip and Runs configured for this service are Maple Avenue faxes.
One final note, if you want to participate in any testing - please feel free to contact me and I will configure things. Once all pieces are completed, there will be more formal announcements and postings in the firehouses.
The gear delivery schedule has been changed due to the rescheduling of the last fit test:
Tuesday, September 2nd: Greenfield Center firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 16th: Porter Corners firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 23rd: Middle Grove firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 30th: Maple Avenue firehouse 7 pm
Remember that if you can't make your particular firehouse evening, simply contact myself or our purchasing agent and make arraignments to make one of the other delivery nights.
This update will be posted in each of the firehouse's district bulletin board and talked about tonight at our commissioner's meeting (at Porter Corners firehouse).
The following gear delivery schedule has been set:
Tuesday, September 2nd: Greenfield Center firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 16th: Middle Grove firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 23rd: Porter Corners firehouse 7 pm
Tuesday, September 30th: Maple Avenue firehouse 7 pm
If you can't make your particular firehouse evening, simply contact myself or our purchasing agent and make arraignments to make one of the other delivery nights.
I touched base with Saratoga County personnel today.
Currently Maple Avenue is the only company programmed into their system, and apparently this is just a test situation.
I have been following testing of the current Rip and Run software very closely, and I relayed to county personnel that testing has been going very, very well. The only issue I did raise was that I have seen a discrepancy between dispatchers - that is, some dispatchers send it to just the one fax, instead of sending it to both (the second being the Rip and Run server). So sometimes we get the second fax, and sometimes we don't.
This is after all to be expected as the new protocols become second nature - and besides, this is still in the testing phase, so not all the dispatching personnel have been informed of this change. Ultimately this discrepancy between dispatchers should resolve itself over time, and it should become second nature to fax the rip and runs to the second fax.
Regarding the programming of Porter Corners, Middle Grove and Greenfield Center into the Rip and Run system, apparently this has been momentarily paused as there has been problems in the past with second fax lines. Apparently a few months ago there was a station in the southern county which had two fax lines programmed into the system - and this created a few problems with the system.
To be clear, it is indeed possible to add second lines to the system, but these problems need to be addressed with the vendor. The county will be meeting with the vendor and I have a follow up phone call the Sunday after that (14th). I'll post back once I know more information.
A few firefighters have requested to be added to the testing list - if you want to be added, just let me know. I added these firefighters in less than 24 hours after I got their emails - its a relatively painless process to do.
I have just received word that the gear is tentatively scheduled to be delivered in September. The tentative game plan is to deliver gear at each station - just like we have done in the past two years.
I am also researching the possibility of getting some repairs done this year as well. I will be discussing repair ideas with the officers at the commissioner meeting later this month.
The problem is that this will take some time to setup so I appreciate everyone's patience as I research this option. This is ultimately why I feel its so important to keep the gear rotation established - ultimately I want to have two sets of gear per firefighter - one old "backup" set of gear, and another "new" front-line set of gear. The idea of course is that if you need to repair the front-line set of gear, you can use your backup set while its out of service.
We have had a few repairs this year already, they typically take 2 weeks or so to complete - so that's a significant amount of time to take gear out of service - which makes the second backup set ever more important.
I'm pretty sure that next year actually marks the 4 year anniversary of the gear initiative - boy did time go by fast! That means that the firefighters who recieved the first round of gear will be getting a new set. I'll be surveying the district inventory to see how that first round is holding up - I know my personal set is showing signs of wear as its approaching 4 years old.
There is only one remaining item left - and that is to complete the fire police order this year. If you recall, this year's proposal allocated a portion of the funds to purchase fire police equipment. I will be following up with the fire police this month to close the loop on this component of the gear purchase.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me.
I took two vacation days to facilitate the installation - and I spent yesterday evening testing the server, all appears well.
The server is located in the Maple Avenue firehouse - just because its much more convenient for me to access - rather than driving each time I need to the district office, for example. This will be the server for all four GFD fire companies however - so we are able to use just one server to process the data for all four fire companies (this is the optimum solution as this minimizes costs of the system).
Just a point of clarification - the current rip and run faxes and numbers are NOT affect AT ALL by the addition of this server and testing. They are completely different systems - and that is by design - one does not affect the other in any way.
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Tuesday, December 16
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