County Durham fire fighters have teamed up with a Sunderland firm to create software in a bid to keep local people safe by fighting fires and Anti Social Behaviour before they begin.
Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service’s Fire Investigation Team have teamed up with software development specialists Orcuma to build intelligent evidence management software which uses technology to help identify trends, patterns and problem areas as to where fires are likely to occur.
The Fire Investigation Service, who protect over 600,000 residents in an area of more than 2500sq km, used to rely on old-fashioned paper reports which were time-consuming to compile, expensive to store and difficult to share with partners like the police.
The team were looking for a system which would allow officers to improve its analysis of fire investigations by providing a better record of fire investigation details, evidence and images and save time by generating reports automatically.
They turned to Orcuma – who also sponsor Scrappy, the unit’s fire investigation dog – to create FIRsT (Fire Investigation Reporting Tool) –the first piece of software in the UK designed exclusively for fire investigators.
Former Crime Scene Investigator and now Fire Investigation Manager, Lee Aspery said “We were looking for a piece of software which would allow our officers to capture and record notes, witness statements and images in a much more efficient way than we could before.
“To keep the public safe we also needed to respond more strategically to problems like arson – understanding developing trends, patterns and problem areas at the earliest opportunity to allow ourselves and our partners to better co-ordinate and efforts and make better use of our resources.
“We looked at lots of off-the-shelf packages, but none of them were designed with the exact needs of fire investigators in mind. So we thought to ourselves, why don’t we design our own software?
“Through working with Orcuma we’ve not only been able to design a system which does exactly what a modern fire service needs it to do – we’ve even been able to build in technology which allows us to automatically compile reports and securely share information between investigators working from 15 stations across Darlington and Durham.
“FIRsT even gives us the power to analyse fire investigations to pick up trends and hot spots – helping us fight fires before they’ve happened”.
Orcuma co-founder Richard Whittaker said: “As a software company, our ambition is to design innovative customer management software which has a positive impact on people’s lives.
“We’ve seen time and time again dedicated public service servants struggling to use software which wasn’t built with their needs in mind and in FIRsT we think we’ve come up with something which will make their lives a lot easier, helping them save lives and provide and even better service to their communities.
“We’re keen supporters of the Fire Service– which is why we sponsor Scrappy – and we’re very proud of being able to support the County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service like this.”
Lee Aspery believes that the FIRST system is already making a difference.
He said: “In one recent case after a fire which destroyed a car, our team found that property had been stolen from the vehicle before it was set alight and established the cause of fire as arson.
“All the evidence was forwarded instantly to the police at the touch of a button – before that could have taken hours or days, in a criminal investigation where every second counts.
“FIRsT gives Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service the means to develop ‘as live’ intelligence on deliberate and secondary fire setting within the communities of County Durham and the Borough of Darlington.
“It also allows Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service to interact in a real time manner with a host of other agencies. Previously, Intelligence gathered by differing agencies was disparate and lacked viable cohesion, not to mention the issues relating to data sharing and security. The software from Orcuma facilitates this data sharing in a secure platform, allowing mapping overlays from differing agencies who need to share common intelligence for the benefit of a safer community.”