Industry Articles
Pre-incident plans: your blueprint for informed firefighting
A pre-incident plan (preplan) documents what firefighters need to know about a building before an emergency: layout, hazardous materials, water supply, and access points. Mobile access matters because a preplan locked in a binder at the station can't help a crew rolling up on a working fire.
Key takeaways
- Pre-incident planning isn't paperwork to rush through. It's a safety necessity for both the community and first responders.
- A good preplan captures the details that change tactics: hazardous materials on site, building layout, access points, and prior incident history at the address.
- A preplan only helps if the crew can reach it during the response, mobile access turns preplans from station records into operational tools.
- Incident history at an address adds context a diagram can't: what has happened there before, and what responders found when they arrived.
In the life-and-death scenarios of firefighting, preplanning is not a tedious task to be rushed through. It's a necessity for the safety of both the community and first responders. A pre-incident plan, a preplan, is the department's documented knowledge of a specific property: what's in it, how it's laid out, what could hurt a crew, and what's happened there before.
The catch: a preplan is only as useful as it is reachable. A binder at the station or a file on a desktop can't help the crew rolling up on a working fire at 2 a.m.
What should a pre-incident plan include?
A strong preplan answers the questions a company officer is asking on the way to the call:
- Where exactly is it? Preplans are tied to an address, searchable by street number and name, or by common place name for locations everyone knows by a different label than the postal address.
- What hazardous materials are on site? Chemical names, amounts, and specific locations within the building. Material Safety Data Sheets add depth: exposure risks, firefighting techniques, and handling guidance for each substance.
- What's the fastest way there? Route information from each station to the location, so responders reach the scene efficiently.
- What's the history at this address? A record of past calls provides context that a floor plan can't, what has happened there before and what crews found when they arrived.
- What matters most in the first minutes? A one-page emergency summary, tailored to the department's specifications, gives first-due responders the most vital safety information without scrolling through the full record.
- Everything else the department captured. The complete preplan record, every field the department filled out during the survey, should be available in full when responders need to dig deeper.
Why does mobile access to preplans matter?
Because the value of a preplan is realized during the response, not after it. Situational awareness is built in the minutes between dispatch and arrival, and a preplan on a mobile data terminal or device puts the building's hazards, layout, history, and access details in front of the crew in exactly that window.
Mobile preplans also change how departments think about the planning work itself. When crews know their surveys will actually be used on calls, not filed away, preplanning shifts from a compliance chore to an operational investment.
One requirement makes or breaks it: the data in the field has to match the data at the station. A mobile preplan system needs synchronization with the department's records management system, so the version a responder sees on scene reflects the most current survey.
How does RedAlert handle mobile preplans?
Mobile preplan access is built into RedAlert, Alpine Software's fire department records management platform. Responders open a map centered on their station, search any address, and pull up the full preplan: HazMat data with linked safety data sheets, prior calls at the address, directions from each station, a one-page emergency summary, and the complete preplan record. A synchronization utility keeps mobile data current with the RedAlert server, so what the crew sees in the field is what the department entered at the station.
Don't leave your preplanning to chance. Equip your department to turn every response into a data-driven operation, book a demo to see mobile preplans in action.
Common questions
What is a pre-incident plan in the fire service?
A pre-incident plan (or preplan) is a documented survey of a specific property that firefighters prepare before any emergency occurs. It typically covers building layout, hazardous materials stored on site, access points, and other details responders need to operate safely and effectively at that address.
Why do fire departments need mobile access to preplans?
Because emergencies don't happen at the station. A preplan stored in a binder or on a desktop is out of reach when a crew is en route. Mobile access puts the building's hazards, layout, and history in front of responders during the response, when the information actually changes decisions.
What hazardous materials information should a preplan include?
At minimum: the chemical names of materials stored at the location, the amounts, and where in the building they're kept. Linking Material Safety Data Sheets adds depth: exposure risks, firefighting techniques, and handling guidance for each substance.
How does RedAlert deliver preplans to responders in the field?
RedAlert's mobile preplan capability is part of the platform's records management system. Responders search any address from a map view and pull up the full preplan, HazMat data with safety data sheets, prior calls at that address, turn-by-turn directions, and a one-page emergency summary, with data synchronized from the department's RedAlert records.
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