Damkar

Damkar is a dispatch system for the Seattle Fire Department designed during Protothon 2024. The platfrom enables fire dispatchers to efficiently discover an incident, allocate resources to it, and then create a report on it after.

Pain Points

This past year has kept the Seattle Fire Department extremely busy with a rising call load. We have seen an increase in calls across many areas, including vacant building fires, scenes of violence, automatic fire alarms, suspected overdoses and responses to those who are unhoused.

A concerning trend they have begun to see is an increase in cardiac arrests, which appears to be correlated with the rise in suspected overdoses. In all, they sent resources on a record-setting 111,319 responses in 2023 – a nearly five percent increase over the prior year.

The City of Seattle's Fire Department is seeking to enhance its operational efficiency and effectiveness through the development of a comprehensive digital platform. This platform aims to streamline communication, resource management, and emergency response coordination.

Initial Ideation

We began by analyzing the stakeholders of Computer Aided Dispatch Systems, such as dispatch operators, fire personals, and department administrators, and their different needs during an emergency. Esentially, we wanted to explore the following key areas when designing our platform:

• How do firefighters and emergency responders quickly report incidents, including location, type of emergency, and severity?
• How does the fire department manage and allocate resources based on real-time data and incident priority levels?
• How does the fire department communicate with each other during incidents so that they can exchange critical information in real-time?
• How does the fire department leverage data analytics to analyze historical incident data and generate insightful reports?

Dispatch Operators Workflow

The workflow of fire dispatchers include receiving emergency calls, gathering critical information about the incident and location, dispatching appropriate fire units, providing guidance to callers, and continuously communicating with both the caller and emergency responders until the situation is resolved.

• Realtime Interactive Data Processing

The first most critical piece of information is the location of the emergency. The dispatcher will ask for the exact address or location of the incident.

• Organized Data Input

The dispatcher will then gather specific details about the fire, such as the type of fire, size, and any immediate dangers (e.g., people trapped, hazardous materials).

• Quick Resource Allocating

After gathering all essential information, the dispatcher will allocate the appropriate fire department units using radio communication systems.

• Report Generation

Once the emergency responders arrive on the scene and the immediate crisis is being handled, the dispatcher may end the call and complete a final report.

Our Solution

Our proposed solution features a centralized dashboard with an interactive map displaying real-time incident locations, active fire stations, and deployed units.

The user-friendly interface enhances dispatcher efficiency, ultimately improving emergency response times and effectiveness.

The Team

Me, Reuben Santoso, Cindy Susanto, Enrico Pratama, Enrico Soputra

Judges Feedback

The dashboard effectively includes all necessary information for the fire station team to take action, demonstrating a solid information architecture.