[Enginerrrd]

I want to take whoever wrote this and throw 40lbs of gear on their back (which is light, but that's just so they don't fully break on the trip) and have them go hump with me it over the roughest imaginable terrain and let them carry all the tech and batteries they want to their heart's content while we go cut fire lines. After they see how useless and unnecessary all that crap is, and how it goes tits up from being dropped/smashed/heated, and how unnecessary it is to do the job they need to do, I'd love to see them pack up their rucksack for the next trip. I'll bet a LOT of money they don't take any of it.

Firefighters don't need a fucking ipad to cut lines. They need a pickaxe, chainsaws, shovels, etc.

Technology in this type of application is almost never more efficient or better than existing methods, but it gets used when it reduces training costs enough to be deployed.

I worked EMS. If I needed to find a house fast and reliably, I'll use the custom fire department's map binder over any technology solution you can come up with any day and it will be superior in essentially every way.

[krapht]

You're exaggerating a little but I agree. I think your example with the FD map binder is a little weird though because that is the one thing that is worse than a maps app with real-time traffic updates. That's a killer feature especially during rush hour. The suburban department I volunteered in was known for having the second worst traffic in the US behind Los Angeles, so it's a little bit of a special circumstance.

[Enginerrrd]

I worked in an area where mapping apps are notoriously unreliable. There is no real traffic here but there's a lot of addresses that can't be found via any mapping app.

Real time updates are only gonna work when you have cell reception, which isn't true for a very large fraction of the time here.

[leetrout]

Northern Virginia?

[Enginerrrd]

PNW