Butler County emergency-management and public-safety leaders presented a proposal to implement FireField Mobile, a smartphone and tablet app that provides unit tracking, turn-by-turn directions and call updates to fire and EMS crews.

Jeremy Saglam, Butler County 9-1-1 director, told commissioners the one-time implementation cost would be roughly $35,000 with an approximately $9,000 annual maintenance fee to be folded into the county’s Tyler Technologies maintenance agreement and paid from 9-1-1 tax funds. Saglam said the county would seek to split the up-front fee among countywide partners and then allocate ongoing costs to fire districts proportionally.

Supporters described operational benefits including reduced radio traffic, better unit tracking on large incidents and real-time call narrative updates. Chief Chad Russell (Andover Fire) described field experience with the app’s prototype and said it let responders mark themselves in-service or available without radio chatter. “If you go 10-8 on the app, they’re golden — you don’t have to radio in,” Russell said, describing how the tool reduced dispatcher and on-scene communication burdens.

Fire chiefs and EMS leadership said the app would be most effective if widely adopted across the county. Some volunteer departments expressed concern about funding and device updates, and county leaders discussed the prospect of covering larger agencies’ shares centrally so smaller volunteer departments would not face significant out-of-pocket costs. Commissioners asked staff to return with a formal budget request and implementation timeline for next year so the board could consider funding and roll-out options.

The board did not take final action on procurement at the meeting; staff will return with a formal funding proposal and recommended cost allocations to enable countywide participation and training.