BELDING, Mich. (WOOD) — When Belding firefighters recently got a call for a kitchen fire, Chief Gregg Moore knew what kind of manpower was available; all he had to do is look at an app on his cellphone.
“It tells me 21 people from my department are responding to it,” he said.
That’s crucial information crews can't get from the pagers most part-time firefighters carry, which don't always work in a metal building and certain areas of the city.
Cellphone-based Active 911 has helped eliminate those problems.
“And it also gives us more information,” Moore said of the service, which Ionia County Central Dispatch added a couple years ago.
“What we're getting on the Active 911 screen is actually what the dispatchers are typing in to their screen,” he explained.
That information helps firefighters answer vital questions before leaving the station.
“Are you taking the right apparatus? Do you have enough people coming? Are you going to need additional help?” Moore explained. “Those split-second decisions make the difference, whether sometimes whether somebody's going to live or somebody's not going to live.”
Active 911 is just one of the upgrades helping Ionia County first responders get to the scene of an emergency.
In 2014, county voters approved an increase in the 911 surcharge to phone bills from $1.90 a month to $2.30.
That funding is going toward updating Ionia County's 911 system, to cut out any delays. Seconds count in emergencies, and the clock starts ticking as soon as 911 dispatchers take a call.