The Official Magazine of the International Association of Fire Chiefs FirstNet: Connecting Emergency Personnel Nationwide Page 8 International Fire Department Exchange Page 11 Retention and Recruitment Toolkit Page 13 Legislative Update Page 15 And much more! Summer 2024Published For: INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS 8251 Greensboro Drive, Suite 650 McLean, VA 22102 Tel: 703.273.0911 www.iafc.org CEO and Executive Director Rob Brown Director of Marketing & Communications Rosario Ortiz Davis, MBA, CAE Published By: MATRIX GROUP PUBLISHING INC. 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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 7 A Message from the IAFC President and Board Chair COVER STORY 8 Transforming Our Nation’s Public Safety Broadband Network FEATURES 11 International Fire Department Exchange: A Platform for International Cooperation 13 Strengthening the Fire Service REPORT FROM WASHINGTON 15 Legislative Update: Starting to See Some Progress in DC WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE IAFC 18 A Message from the IAFC CEO and Executive Director 17 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS 1113 08interoperability and assure “always on access” through priority and pre-emption. Today, through our close collaboration with the FirstNet Authority, our members have access to such a network and an ecosystem of apps, devices, and capabilities that are innovative, reliable, accessible, and secure. We look forward to continuing our relationship with the FirstNet Authority and their partners as they launch the next phase of FirstNet through a series of strategic investments totaling more than $8 billion over 10 years. I encourage you to learn more about FirstNet and what it can do to improve your department’s communications strategy. Fire Chief John S. Butler President and Board Chair Connecting Heroes: The Vital Role of Communication // A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT inception, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) has been a strong supporter of FirstNet’s mission. We have worked closely with the FirstNet Authority to share the voices of our members — and to ensure the network is built in a way that meets our needs. Although the buildout, deployment, and operation of this dedicated network has steadily grown, recent investments will provide for a significant expansion of this critical infrastructure. At the IAFC, our mission is defined by our membership. FirstNet was born out of the grassroots “D Block” initiative of the IAFC and other national public safety organizations to address our members’ need for a wireless, nationwide public safety voice and data network to enhance As technology improves and society becomes more diverse, our communication strategies will likewise need to improve and diversify. AS JAMES HUMES once said, “The art of communication is the language of leadership.” Communication is also the lifeline of a fire department, and it is the principle on which all our lifesaving endeavors depend. As technology improves and society becomes more diverse, our communication strategies will likewise need to improve and diversify. The way leaders define communication within their departments determines their potential, and as first responders, our potential determines the future of entire communities. In this edition of iCHIEFS, you’ll read about the First Responder Network (FirstNet), a crucial development in the public safety communications sphere. Our cover article will explain why a closed nationwide broadband network is crucial for effective emergency services operations — and how the lack of such networks impacted first responders during the 9/11 attacks. I would like to thank Clark County (NV) Fire Department Assistant Chief Brian O’Neal and Michael Varney, Senior Director of Field Operations at the FirstNet Authority, for helping us tell the story of this vital initiative and its lifesaving potential for first responders nationwide. The FirstNet Authority has existed as an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) since 2012. Since the agency’s By Kaitlin Vitt, iCHIEFS Staff Writer Transforming Our Nation’s Public Safety Broadband Network COVER STORY \\ I n the fast-paced world of emergency response, effective communication can mean the difference between life and death. Many advances in communications technology have taken place over the years, and public safety communications have come a long way since two-channel radios and paper records. One major development of recent times is FirstNet, the first nationwide broadband network built specifically for public safety. With a dedicated network core that separates public safety traffic from non-public safety traffic, FirstNet is changing the communications landscape for countless first responders. The FirstNet network, operated by the FirstNet Authority as an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), The Clark County Fire Department in Las Vegas, Nevada, began utilizing FirstNet about five years ago. enables the fire service, EMS, and law enforcement to do their jobs more safely and effectively, no matter where they are located. “Now there’s a reliable, secure, dedicated, and prioritized broadband network for us to use to communicate and share data. That didn’t exist a decade ago,” says Michael Varney, the Senior Director of Stakeholder Collaboration at the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet Authority, and a 40-year veteran of the fire service. “When we were responding to [past] incidents, we had no more priority access to any of those network resources than anybody else. Our fire apparatus had no more priority than the minivan parked next to us at the light with everybody streaming their videos.”FirstNet changes this. The network is exclusive to emergency services, giving responders the ability to access the resources they need in real- time as they respond to incidents. They can look up information about infrastructure near the scene, locate water facilities, and instantly share data with their response partners, all within a secure, protected network built specifically for their use. In short, FirstNet ensures emergency responders always have access to the network — resulting in faster, stronger, and more effective communications for all first responders. THE LAUNCH OF FIRSTNET The 9/11 terrorist attacks revealed serious communication challenges among emergency responders. The channels in place didn’t allow for interoperability across agencies, and phone lines were quickly overwhelmed with an influx of calls that impeded effective communication among firefighters, EMS, and law enforcement alike. “Although the problem had been realized for some time, that event really brought it to the forefront,” Varney says. The 9/11 Commission Report recommended the establishment of a nationwide public safety broadband network. For a decade, public safety bodies worked with national associations across all emergency response disciplines to encourage the federal government to develop this network. In 2012, Congress responded by creating the FirstNet Authority as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act. The FirstNet Authority began its work as an agency by prioritizing the building, deploying, and operating of a dedicated public safety broadband network. In 2017, they contracted AT&T to create the network. Since then, the network has been built out to cover 99% of the U.S. population. “There’s over 28,000 public safety agencies and organizations that use the network in their daily responses, and that adds up to 5.9 million data connections for different devices that The Clark County Fire Department has relied on FirstNet for events such as Super Bowl LVIII, using deployable assets such as the SatColt (pictured).Next >