Seeking Innovations for Urban Firefighting

[u/Due-Department7555]

Hi everyone,

I'm a cadet with the Military Fire Department in Brazil. For my thesis, I'm looking for innovative technologies and procedures to improve our urban firefighting operations (or some general structures implementations).

I'm hoping to learn from your experiences.

What's a piece of equipment or technology that has significantly enhanced your department's effectiveness in urban environments? (e.g., thermal cameras, cutting tools, or data systems).

What procedural or structural change has made a major impact on how you handle large-scale urban fires?

Your insights are invaluable and could help shape the future of firefighting in my home state.

Thanks for your help!

[u/SeaworthinessFun3155]

Having tablets (I think the US calls them MDT’s) in the truck, it gives us so much information as we are responding, we can see hydrant locations, what mains the hydrant is on, the size of the main which allows us to plan our water supply so we don’t overrun the capacity of a single main. We also have satellite imagery, and on commercial buildings we often have diagrams showing locations of hazards, building suppression systems access points, gate codes, so much information which we can access to make our initial response so much more efficient and co-ordinated. There is a massive upfront cost in terms of buying the tablets and also developing the applications and digitising/formatting a lot of information