BeOn App Helps Fire Chief Monitor Incident From 3,000 Miles Away

On the morning of August 13, 2022, Scott Gilles, fire chief for the Sheffield Village, Ohio, Fire Department, was vacationing with his wife in Iceland when he received a notification that his department had been dispatched to help put out a fire. 

The fire erupted at a condominium complex, and the department was one of nine departments called to respond. Fortunately, the responding units were able to extinguish the blaze in an hour, and no one was injured.

AN APP THAT CLOSES THE DISTANCE GAP

Even though he was nearly 3,000 miles away, Chief Gilles was able to monitor the event through the BeOn application by L3Harris that he had only recently added to his smartphone.

Public safety agencies rely on Land Mobile Radio Push-to-Talk (PTT) capabilities to enable them to transmit secure, mission-critical voice communications. Offering end-to-end security, BeOn extends the capabilities of an LMR network to smartphones, tablets, and PCs, providing secure PTT communications well beyond the boundaries of regional radio systems.

When Gilles was alerted about the fire, he remembered his BeOn app and decided to try it out. “I was alerted on my phone via Active911 of a working structure fire in Avon Lake (Ohio),” said Gilles. “Out of curiosity, I logged into my BeOn 700 MHz mobile phone app to see if I would be able to hear the radio traffic being transmitted on our L3Harris 700 radio system. To my surprise, I was able to listen to all the radio traffic from the scene, and it was just as clear as if I were there on the scene, in real time, and without delay. I was truly impressed by the quality and capability of the BeOn mobile application as well as the L3Harris P25 system. 

“The traffic was so clear and concise that had I had a tablet of paper and a pen, I could have effectively run incident command of that scene from the bench that I was sitting on in Husavik, Iceland.”

A DIFFERENCE MAKER

Cleveland Communications, Inc., an indirect channel partner of L3Harris and its predecessors since 1989, provides the communications network that the Sheffield Lake Fire Department as well as several other area fire departments and police departments use. According to Alan Close, president of Cleveland Communications, Inc., BeOn is a difference maker for their public safety agency partners that use it. 

“The fire that Chief Gilles talks about was a major event for all departments involved,” said Close. “The chief’s ability to interact with his people on scene was never possible prior to the new L3Harris network coming online. The products and solutions L3Harris delivers to the marketplace are important to those who need to ‘talk anywhere, anytime, to anyone.’ We simply provided the network. We serve those who serve.”

MULTIPLYING VALUE

According to Gilles, the BeOn app provides additional value to a fire department like his, which has to respond to all hazards and is dispatched by a county 911 center.

“When involved with an incident that requires the use of a tactical/fireground channel, we still have to monitor our dispatch channel to ensure that other requests for service are answered promptly,” said Gilles. “By using the BeOn app set to our dispatch channel and an ear bud, I’m able to monitor that traffic while using a unit or portable radio to communicate on the fireground.