Case Study: Natick Fire Department improves Boston Marathon response coordination with First Due

Natick Fire Department - Customer Case Study

The Natick Fire Department faced significant challenges in managing its three-mile section of the Boston Marathon route, which bifurcates the town and complicates emergency response. The department needed to coordinate multiple mutual aid agencies, overcome access restrictions, and manage high radio traffic to ensure effective coverage for both the race and the community. To address this, they turned to the vendor First Due and its incident management platform.

By implementing First Due, the department created logins for all participating mutual aid units, enabling real-time unit tracking on a shared map. This provided an overarching operational view from the command center, drastically improving strategic apparatus placement and incident response. The solution streamlined communications by moving critical details off congested radio channels and into the app, allowing crews to pinpoint emergencies like a cardiac arrest with precision. First Due provided the necessary tools for effective large-scale event management and future pre-planning.

Natick Fire Department

Matt Mullen

Lieutenant