But getting all that manpower and resources coordinated among the 130 agencies that responded was a challenge because of the all-to-common interoperability issues. “When you fight fires like the ones we face, you can have all the manpower and the bulldozers and the tanker trucks but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t communicate,” said Creek County Commissioner Newt Stephens in a press release.
The county has responded by procuring a new public safety infrastructure on which all public safety agencies will be able to communicate. The county secured a $10 million federal grant for the Motorola system that will include state-of-the-art radios. The plan also sets aside additional radios for visiting public safety officials who may respond to a future wildfire.
The solution will be deployed over the next 14 months and will include:
• A Project 25 system (ASTRO 250) that will connect the county to the state’s OKWIN statewide network used by the Department of Public Safety and the State Patrol.
• Improvements to six transmission sites that improve coverages throughout the county
• CommandCentral Inform, a layered geospatial intelligence application that helps agencies track staff and equipment in real time.
