GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Brown County is upgrading to a new communications system that will make mutual aid responses faster and more accurate.
For years, 911 dispatchers in Brown County have shifted through a large three-ring binder during major events to determine what extra crews should be sent to the scene of a fire or some other emergency. While it’s all pre-scripted, thanks to the work of the county’s 18 fire departments, the binder is clunky and time consuming to navigate.
“The dispatch center would have to pull out this binder, open up the page for the chapter and verse that we need and then be able to read off the resources that we need. So, there was always an opportunity that there was a time delay issue,” said Al Matzke, president of Brown County MABAS Division 112.
But by June 15, Brown County Public Safety Communications plans to go live with HIEBA — a modern digital platform for managing Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) responses across all fire and emergency medical service agencies served by Brown County’s 911 dispatch center.
The transition will replace traditional static box cards with a real-time, mobile-accessible system that enables dispatchers, incident commanders and responding agencies to coordinate resources with greater speed, accuracy and visibility during fire, rescue, hazardous materials and mass-casualty incidents.
According to Matzke, “This is a measured, calculated process where we take the appropriate amount of resources that we need to try to mitigate a certain incident, and what the system will do is, it will really help automate it for the wonderful people that work at the Brown County Communication Center. It’s going to be able to make sure that they know exactly what resources we’re asking for.”
The software will not only save time, but it can also pre-alert departments to let them know they should expect to be called out to an incident. That’s an important piece, since the majority of the fire departments in Brown County are volunteer.
“We don’t have to wait until the alarm comes in before we can get people into the station to get them ready to work. We now can call up by phone, have a little bit more of a chance to try to inform our staff that we need help and then they’re more likely to leave their place of work or leave their home if they have a chance to try to make arrangements for that,” said De Pere Fire Chief Brett Jansen.
The switch comes as the Brown County 911 dispatch center continues to struggle with ongoing staffing issues and low morale.
“Brown County is committed to providing the highest level of emergency communications service to our residents and to the agencies that protect them,” said Chris Brownell, Brown County Public Safety Communications supervisor, in a news release. “HIEBA gives our telecommunicators and our fire and EMS partners a modern, reliable tool to coordinate mutual aid quickly and consistently, supporting better outcomes when seconds matter.”
HIEBA digitizes MABAS box cards and integrates dispatching workflows, real-time unit tracking and standardized communication scripts into a single platform. The system is in use by more than 500 public safety agencies across the United States and is purpose-built to align with established MABAS operational principles.
