Chief Dan Munsey is Assistant Fire Chief of San Bernardino Fire Protection district, the California Fire Chiefs Association Operations section president, and part of the IAFC technology council. Dan has decades of experience in the fire industry. He has seen the evolution of data in the fire industry and how much things have changed and haven’t changed over the years.

Everyone in the fire industry knows there is a necessity to implement data into their planning and training, but refining the information is a major challenge in the industry. One common thing Dan has noticed in his career is how much data is available to them. It is great to have all this information, but unless the data is refined and presented in a way to be used; it will fall to the wayside. Another problem is information overload. With so much data being poured onto firefighters, decision-makers don’t know where to start and instead fall back on old processes.

Technology and innovation are driving forces behind change in the fire industry. It’s important we keep the change positive and not have products entering the market that doesn’t solve a problem. Fire departments are being asked to decide if technology will be worth the resources without knowing if that technology will still be available next year. We ask a lot of firefighters we shouldn’t leave them in a situation that puts them at a disadvantage.

Firefighters aren’t averse to change; in fact, they are pushing for it. The problem is that the data that is being used isn’t actionable enough. For the fire industry to change data needs to become cleaner and have a clear direction for change.

To learn more about Chief Dan Munsey visit his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-munsey/