Mobile command vehicles have come a long way since the days when a fire chief's aide drove a Suburban filled with maps and reference books. Fire departments need multiple communication systems and fully integrated incident command centers, and have begun investing in roomy, high-tech vehicles for large-scale incidents and major disasters.

A mobile command center is a different breed of vehicle, akin to designing a dispatch center/command center/office on wheels. And metro, urban and volunteer departments may find they need different things. Three departments share what they found useful in their command-vehicle designs and what they might change in their next ones.

Know IT Alls

The Frisco (Texas) Fire Department is a Class 1-rated combination department with 140 career and 25 volunteer firefighters. Last August, the department took delivery of a $1.5 million mobile command center vehicle built by Pierce Manufacturing. The unit was built on a Velocity chassis, and has a 34H-foot walk-in command body, with an 87I-inch interior walkway height. It features TAK-4 independent front suspension, a 450-hp engine and Command Zone advanced electronics.

Frisco's Communications-Command 601 (C-COM 601) includes a video teleconferencing system and an 800 MHz digital radio system to provide interoperable communications among all responders.

There are 20 video display screens throughout the apparatus, including a 42-inch screen mounted outside the vehicle for incident team briefings. Imaging equipment includes portable thermal-imaging camera receivers, a Will-Burt mast-mounted thermal-imaging camera and a mast-mounted high-definition camera to assess emergency situations quickly.

"The best thing was probably the [vehicle's] integration as a whole," Chief Mack Borchardt said. "There are a lot of complicated and not-so-complicated systems operating together. If I had to do it over again, I'd want to rethink the door security system, but that is a minor component."

Borchardt and Asst. Chief Paul Seibert are particularly pleased with the size of the mobile command vehicle and the three slide-out modules, which offer an operational area and a conference room with six work stations, two with full dispatch capabilities. Frisco also has a support vehicle that pulls a trailer with supplies, restrooms and inflatable tents that can be used to create more workspace.

Frisco's vehicle is part of a regional task force and could respond with multiple agencies from all over Texas.

"Not everyone carries the same radios, so you need the adapters to adjust," Seibert said. "We're still working on parts of that process."

Since delivery last August, training on the vehicle has been ongoing. The vehicle also has been deployed for walk-in tours, as well as exercises with local and regional police and fire departments.

C-COM 601 is equipped with highly advanced video-streaming capabilities that will be used by a program developed with the Frisco School District known as Situational Awareness for Emergency Response (SAFER). The system enables the mobile command center to receive live streaming video feeds from any of the security cameras located in Frisco's 36 schools. In addition, the same live streaming video soon will be available through feeds from all 200 of the city's pan-tilt-zoom traffic monitoring cameras.

In January, the Frisco Police Department used C-COM 601 during a SWAT-team deployment and the fire department used the vehicle during an ammonia release at a local ice rink. Fire and police personnel operated the vehicle under a unified-command structure for a 20,000-attendee concert at Pizza Hut Park and will use it again for future concerts. Interest from other state and federal agencies has generated additional opportunities for C-COM 601 to function in even larger-scale events.

"The most impressive thing has been the lack of technical support needed to keep the unit operational, the ability of line firefighters and police officers to become quickly familiar with the operational features of the vehicle, and the extent to which C-COM 601 has been embraced by the fire personnel and personnel from other departments within the city of Frisco," Borchardt said. "I visualized a more complicated break-in time."

Borchardt and Seibert both stressed that while the vehicle is state of the art now, anyone who purchases a similar vehicle should always take full advantage of the latest technology — advances that could require upgrades just before delivery.

"It seems to me that Siebert, our IT department and the radio consultants were able to work with the vendor to communicate our needs and anticipate ways to develop a very complex vehicle that was also very user friendly," Borchardt said. "Those attributes are key to the vehicle's mission being successful."

Practice Makes Perfect

In 2008, the Fort Worth (Texas) Fire Department placed in service a custom SVI mobile command unit built on 24-foot formed-aluminum body. The rig features a 25-kW Onan PTO-driven generator and a Will-Burt mast with Pelco video camera.

Capt. Homer Robertson said that the department's first command vehicle, built in 1997, didn't have many computers, so he's pleased with the unit's capabilities.

"We can go to an apartment fire and, with Google Earth, look at the building position from when the picture was taken," he said. "I haven't seen a lot we would change."

For first-timers building a mobile command vehicle, Robertson encourages working with a company that specializes in building vehicles that integrate advanced communications systems.

"You need to do research on the data communications," he said. "I would make sure we used a specialty company and people who are used to dealing with the government and law enforcement — that's not the stuff you would get from some of the metal body builders."

Fort Worth plans to use the command unit at the upcoming Super Bowl. To increase familiarity, the unit responds to every second alarm and every commercial fire. The department also prepaid for satellite time, 10 hours a month for three years, so users can stay fresh with the equipment. "We practice with our unit every month," Robertson said. "We found it's a diminishing skill if you don't use it."

While Fort Worth's spacious vehicle has three slide-outs, it does not have a restroom. "A lot of command units do, but we have a rehab truck that we use at incidents," Robertson said. "People were using this as a port-a-potty, so we chose not to include one and instead used that area to install data racks."

Robertson said there are exterior telephones on the vehicle to limit access, but he would have liked an exterior camera to see who is trying to access the secured door. "If people want to talk to you, they can use the exterior phone and communicate with you. Maybe they are nasty or contaminated, so it's safer too," he said. "It's distracting to have people coming into the command vehicle, so exterior telephones by the windows is good. "

With the Texas heat, Robertson made sure there was proper ventilation — five roof-mounted air conditioners. In addition, because the radios and computers generate a tremendous amount of heat, there is one designated air-conditioning unit for the data racks.

"The problem with mobile command trucks is that most of us don't get an opportunity to build one very often," Robertson said. "So it's really important to go to the experts who build command vehicles. If you're going to build one that sophisticated, you need someone with communication, data and radio information systems [experience]."

1 is Better than 2

The North Arlington (N.J.) Fire Department is an all-volunteer department with 85 members. The department needed a new mobile command center to replace both a 20-year-old Saulsbury walk-in command vehicle and an old hazmat/rescue vehicle.

Capt. Mark Zidiak led the 10-member specification committee — four officers and six firefighters. The committee selected a KME Predator X-MFD command cab with a 22-inch raised roof and walk-through 24-foot stainless-steel rescue body with roof compartments accessed by a rear ladder. The exterior has storage compartments for six SCBA bottles and a Bauer breathing-air compressor system with dual-fill station. The vehicle has a Whelen LED warning-light system, Firecom intercom system and a Command Light tower.

The multipurpose command vehicle serves as a rescue unit with a 9,000-pound portable winch with receiving points on all four sides, a Hurst tool system, and a 50,000-watt Lima direct-drive, three-phase PTO generator. The unit also carries a small Zodiak boat.

"We do a lot of river searches and we used to put a guy up in the aerial with a thermal-imaging camera," Zidiak said. "So we added an IntecVideo Sentinal system with dual-camera surveillance and thermal imager built in."

The command area has seating for two and a communications center with radios, scanners and video capability. It houses an extensive hazmat library and VHF/UHF communication system that's expandable to 800 MHz. The countertop of the two-position command center has a dry-erase finish for quick notes. There are desks at each end of the counter that lift up for storage of supplies underneath.

"This unit is also the back up to the police department's dispatch center," Zidiak said. "We can do anything that dispatch at the police centers can do and get everybody on the road if necessary."

The mobile command center also has access to all the public-works department files, including sewer systems.

"We had two rigs made into this one," Zidiak said. "It does all the things the hazmat truck did, and with all the rescue equipment we can be a second rescue company. The command center really is for large scale incidents, and [can function as] a mobile SCBA fill center."

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