October 2005
| Project Highlights: |
Capital of Nunavut
Territory |
Combined Fire
and EMS |
Real-time Integration
with RMS |
Northern Department with Unique Needs
The Horizon EME CAD system is now live with Iqaluit Fire, providing prompt and comprehensive dispatch capability for the capital of Canada’s northern Nunavut territory.
Iqaluit is the administrative capital of Nunavut, a vast territory of over 2 million square kilometers spanning several time zones. As the seat of government for the territory, Iqaluit is growing rapidly, and is home to many high-value buildings including schools, hospitals, and courts.
In addition to fire protection, Iqaluit Fire provides EMS/First Responder service to the city, and works closely with other departments such as RCMP and Public Works to provide comprehensive emergency response and management. The northern climate poses some unique challenges for providing fire protection, due to the permafrost and arctic weather that prevails for most of the year.
Better Information, Better Response
According to Greg Jewers, acting fire chief, the new CAD is expected to make a strong contribution to the department’s incident response: “The Symposium system helps on a number of levels, from assisting dispatchers in determining which vehicles to send, through to displaying the position and status of available hydrants, as well as providing information on key holders, stored chemicals, and other important information.”
Another important factor for the Iqaluit department is the ability to administer the system themselves, and to make changes that reflect the city’s growth and changing make-up. As Greg went on to say: “Being able to enter new building locations, hydrants and other information into the CAD ourselves is really invaluable – it enables us to take control of the situation, to have better information, and to in turn be better prepared for any situation that may arise.”
Working with Agencies of All Sizes
Symposium is very proud of its work with Iqaluit, and sees it as an expression of the flexibility of its business model of being able to provide full CAD systems for agencies of all sizes. According to Symposium’s Jeff Connors, the Symposium approach is something new in public safety technology: “Traditionally there have been two choices – high-performance high-cost systems, or low-performance, low-cost systems – either way the client really suffers, either monetarily or operationally. With our sliding per-capita based pricing, we’re able to provide top of the line performance to agencies of ALL sizes and budgets. Because smaller agencies perform the same vital tasks as bigger agencies, they should have access to the same support systems. For our part, it’s very satisfying to help make it happen.”
For more information, or for those interested in seeing the system in action, please contact Symposium by emailing us at info@symposiumtechnologies.com.
