Welcome

Welcome to Firehouse® (FH®), a powerful software package that integrates a database with a graphical user interface, so that data entered once can be used in different areas of the system. FH is organized into modules which can be purchased individually, providing a flexible, modular design that can be afforded and used by fire departments and EMS agencies of every size. NFIRS 5.0 certification and NEMSIS Gold Certification are core components of FH.

FH can be licensed and deployed in one of three ways:

  • FH Standard—for stand-alone workstations and local area networks.
  • FH Enterprise—for fire departments and EMS agencies that need to run FH with remote access to a central database. FH Enterprise provides the same interface as the standard FH package, but uses a client installation on individual computers to access the FH database on a central server. Most processing is completed at the server, minimizing network traffic and allowing slower connection speeds with acceptable response times.
  • FH Web—for the central database access of FH Enterprise, but using a standard Web browser instead of a client software installation on individual computers. FH Web provides access to the FH database from any computer with Internet access.

These modules let you gather and export required and optional NFIRS 5.0 incident data to the state, and record additional incident-related information such as extrication details and NFPA 1710/1720 information. The extensive NFIRS 5.0 code set can be fine-tuned using plus-one codes, and valid NFIRS 5.0 codes for a specific field can be accessed through a single click or searched for by keyword. Investigation records can be linked to specific incidents, or add stand-alone investigation reports, and multiple investigations can be linked together. You can also track confidential juvenile fire setter data and additional suspect, juvenile, evidence collection, chain of custody details, and optional NFIRS 5.0 arson data. You can add photos to the investigation record or link to a directory of photos, and you can automatically generate an incident narrative.

Basic EMS reporting is included with NFIRS 5.0 Incident Reporting, and full EMS incident reporting is available individually or as part of a bundled system. The EMS module is tailored to your department’s reporting needs, and includes code set installation options for NFIRS 5.0, NHTSA, NHTSA 2.2 (NEMSIS), state-specific code sets, or a local custom code set. Record validation rules are based on the selected code set.

You can gather NFIRS 5.0 EMS incident data elements and additional data elements that are part of the expanded FH EMS incident management module, and you can track extrication, water rescue, confined space rescue, and high-angle rescue details. You can add multiple patients to an EMS incident, and multiple types of rescue equipment use. Comprehensive patient reporting includes response and clinical information, patient assessments, procedures, medications, and treatments, and much more. You can even track patient insurance information and privacy policy notification.

This module saves you valuable time entering records by letting you associate measure/unit/route and instructions with specific medication codes, quickly replicate assessments, medications, and treatment details and automatically increment times, update consumable inventory while adding medications and procedures, and automatically generate an incident narrative and patient narrative from entered information.

These three modules help you track all occupancy information including building information, owners and contacts, associate multiple occupancies with a single property and view detail records for associated occupancies, and maintain extensive preplan information, including hydrant proximity and needed fire flow calculations based on ISO specifications.

They will prompt you to add history records any time name or building information change, issue, maintain, and renew permits. You can issue multiple permits under one permit number, and link a chemical inventory to a specific permit. You can track inspections and violations with available industry-standard violation code sets, and batch-schedule inspections or automatically schedule a follow up inspection when completing an inspection.

You can link to preplan drawings, maps, and other external files, and create drawings with FH Sketch add-on module (not included as part of complete bundled package.)

These three modules help you track a variety of information such as years of service, proximity to station, phone numbers, email addresses, and insurance records. You can maintain confidential information with additional security controls for pay information, casualty reports, Fire and EMS certification details, EMS exposures, and insurance information. You can gather miscellaneous staff history records like vaccinations, issued equipment, and special skills, and be prompted to add a history record any time rank or status change.

You can track all aspects of staff training, including training hours, CEU credits, and class attendance, and track certification status using training program records. You can add as many instructors to a training record as needed, and quickly add staff and hour or skill requirements for certifications .You can also display expiring certifications in daily reminder on start up and batch renew them.

You can integrate and manage staff scheduling through our Staff Scheduling add-on module (not included as part of complete bundled package.)

These three modules help you maintain comprehensive apparatus, equipment, and inventory records with additional fields for specialized types of equipment and equipment maintenance, including specialized testing fields for hose, SCBA, pumps, and other types. You can track every aspect of inventory, like out of service equipment, consumables, and maintenance and testing details, and you can batch-schedule or complete maintenance and test detail records.

This module lets you complete hydrant maintenance, inspection, and repair records, and track time spent maintaining, testing, and repairing hydrants. You can calculate flow test measurements automatically based on pressure readings, and choose specific pre-set Hazen-Williams or NFPA flow test equations or establish a custom flow test equation. You can also add flow tests and activities for multiple hydrants.

The Staff Scheduling module lets you manage personnel scheduling within FH by defining shifts and assigning specific personnel to each shift. Each staff member added to a shift can also include default information to associate with staff activities added from scheduling. You can define a schedule that includes as many shifts as needed, add personnel to each shift, then use Staff Scheduling to track vacation days, overtime, or other special categories of time. A dynamic list of shift staff members is available everywhere staff is added in FH. Staff Scheduling is flexible enough to support exchanges when one staff member covers for another staff member in a different shift, but powerful enough to review which shift will cover a specific date years into the future. You can set defaults for each staff member included in defined shifts, then create a complete activity for all shift staff with a single mouse-click. You can also view shift events on the department journal when shift coloring is enabled.

Cost recovery is a concern for many departments, and FH Accounts Receivable can aid your cost recovery efforts. Invoices can be generated as activities are added as normal in FH or, when relationships between account records and specific records have been set up, can be generated with the batch-generate invoices feature. Invoices can be itemized with amounts automatically added. Additional invoice items can be added as needed.

FH Sketch provides and an intuitive interface and seamless integration to make drawing, modifying, updating and exporting pre-plans simpler and easier than ever. FH Sketch allows you to reference and utilize aerial photography, and to import files from popular preplan programs in DXF/DWG formats, CAD or hand drawn plans and draw right on top of them. You can import sketches obtained from a city planner, assessor, or paper file using Photometrics. Supported formats include dwg, dxf, png, pdf and jpg. FH Sketch is available with the Occupancy module.

Below are some of the key features that make FH unique.

  • Database Audit Log - Know at a glance the changes that have been made to your databases. Using the database audit log, you can track what changes have been made, when the changes were made, which user made the changes, and which workstation the changes were made from.
  • Import Export Data - Transfer information from other programs into FH quickly with records stored in standard formats such as DBF or ASCII. Using the external data import designer within FH, you can specify how the external data is imported and where the fields in the data go, and then run the import. You can browse the results, and then commit the data when you are satisfied.
  • System Rules and Default Values - You can design flexible validation rules for saving records throughout the FH system, or specify default values to add to any field in the system when you create new records. Every field for data entry forms can be required at all times, or required based on values from other fields in the record. When you add conditions that must be met for a field value to be acceptable, you also control the error message displayed to help the person entering the record correct the value. Default values can be added for fields in data entry forms in all areas. The specified default values are automatically added when new records are added.
  • Templates - Templates let you create a standard record that can be recalled to speed data entry. Templates are available in all modules, so records that share a lot of common information can be saved. When a new record is created, the template can be recalled, automatically completing the common information.
  • User-Defined Fields - You can add new fields for tracking your department's data. Define the type of data for your user-defined field, and select what type of control to include on the form for entering the data. User fields take advantage of system rules and default values, so you can control when user fields are required. Use lookups for your user fields when you want to specify allowable values.
  • Queries - You can design queries that will gather data for report forms, and display available records which can be output to a file or copied to the clipboard. Using the Query Designer, you can select data tables and fields to include in query results. You can join related tables using Inner, Left, Right, and Outer SQL joins. You can also add criteria to exclude specific records from the query results or allow users to add criteria at the time they run the query.
  • Reports - Using Report Designer, you can edit existing reports or create new reports to present data analysis on printed forms and in electronic PDF files. Report Designer allows you to carefully control how the printed report form looks. Advanced functions in Report Designer provide opportunities for special calculations and analysis within the form layout.
  • Graphs - You can create graphs that illustrate your FH data. Use existing preset graphs, modify the graphs to suit your department’s unique needs, or create your own graphs from scratch. You can use report queries as the basis of graphs. Available graph types include: Bar, Line, Area, Pie, Point, Curved Line, and Stacked. Graphs can be saved as bitmap images to import into most word processing or spreadsheet applications.
  • Internal Messaging - Internal messaging allows you to send messages within FH to specific staff. You can create multiple notes on save so they can be deleted individually. FH internal messages can be sent to all FH users, specific staff members by name/station assignment/rank/status (if a staff ID is associated with an FH user login record), or specific users or user groups if you do not associate staff ID with FH login records. Internal messaging checks for unread messages at a user-defined interval and automatically displays a message when a message for the currently logged in user is received.

Additional features that expand Firehouse are available. Contact your sales representative for availability and pricing.

  • Inspection Violation Code Sets - Violation code sets are used to track violations found during occupancy inspections. Different code sets are available based on the code set adopted by your community. When you purchase a code set, you get the entire code set in a FH-ready format for quick importing into your FH database.
  • TeleStaff Custom Import Interface - The TeleStaff Interface is a custom data import, populating data from TeleStaff scheduling software. The import is commonly used with our automated task processor within FH to automatically keep staff scheduling information up-to-date.
  • Custom Export for TriTech Software's Sweet-Billing System - Export your EMS patient care billing record information to Sweet-Billing with our custom export.