Lancaster County fire leaders report missing incident submissions tied to email and FirstView setup

Lancaster County commissioners and fire staff spent a sizeable portion of their meeting reviewing repeated failures in the county’s incident-report workflow that have left volunteer responders without credit and county records incomplete.

Staff members told the commission that many run reports are not arriving in the county mailbox because messages have been quarantined by spam filters, arrive in WinMail format that many devices cannot open, or are missing a subject line that causes automatic rejection. Staff said those technical issues have left some volunteer reports stuck in outboxes or filtered as spam and have delayed end-of-shift reconciliation and stipend crediting.

The problem surfaced in recent months when a set of historical run-report files sent to the county was quarantined by recipients’ spam filters, a staff member told commissioners. That same staff member said when the county’s missing-report notifications arrive they sometimes use WinMail, which cannot be opened without Microsoft Office on the receiving device. The meeting also recorded that sending reports without a subject line can trigger automated rejections.

Commissioners and chiefs said the reporting gap affects volunteers’ pay and the county’s ability to respond to public records requests. One participant explained that until a written report is received and processed, volunteers do not get credit for calls and may lose recruitment or stipend payments tied to report counts. Staff warned that missing or delayed reports can force additional follow-up sessions to assemble records for public requests or insurers.

Officials described efforts to fix the flow: checking spam filters, asking IT to retrieve quarantined messages, standardizing subject-line content (for example, putting the run number or address in the subject), and moving more reporting onto county-networked computers so messages use county email accounts. Staff said they will attempt to send missing reports again and to work with the county’s IT group on spam-filter settings.

Commissioners and chiefs also discussed problems with the FirstView/First-due user view. Staff said FirstView was configured for a single fire district and does not present FDID or CAD numbers clearly for departments in a multi-station county, which makes it hard for volunteers to match the correct run to the correct department. That mismatch has created duplicate entries and confusion about which station is primary on a call. The commission reported ongoing coordination to modify the FirstView interface so the FDID/CAD information is visible to users across stations.

Dispatching and radio group issues were raised as related operational problems. Speakers said crews sometimes monitor the wrong talk group — for example, being on channel op-3 when the incident is on op-4 — and that dispatch does not always tell crews they are on the wrong channel. Staff asked dispatch to notify crews when they are on the wrong talk group so responders can switch and confirm attendance.

The commission asked staff to continue working with the county IT team to: ensure messages leave with a subject line, stop quarantines for county report emails, change WinMail formatting where possible, and pursue county-network accounts at stations so reports originate on machines that use the county email domain. Staff said they will also pursue periodic checks that reports have been received and consider automatic-reply receipts for fire-reports mailboxes so senders can confirm delivery.

The commission concluded the discussion without a formal vote; staff were directed to continue troubleshooting and report back.