Case Study: Bouches-Du-Rhône Fire Brigade achieves real-time emergency dispatch and improved wildfire management with Hexagon's Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial Division

Real-time Emergency Dispatch for Europe’s Largest Fire Brigade

Bouches-Du-Rhône Fire Brigade, based in Marseille and responsible for one of France’s most incident-prone departments, faced rising 112 call volumes and frequent major incidents (large forest fires, industrial events, sea/mountain rescues). The Brigade needed faster emergency response, automatic location identification and messaging from the field, better large-fire management, and increased firefighter and equipment availability. They engaged Hexagon's Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial Division to solve these challenges.

Hexagon's Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial Division deployed an intelligent computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system with integrated vector maps, aerial imagery, telephony interfaces (including GSM automatic location), AVL and mobile data terminals, plus the FireTactic module for fire spread modeling. The CAD—used by 16 call-takers, supervisors, remote dispatchers and 20 web-based staff and connected to all 67 fire stations—sped call-taking and dispatch, centralized 112/18 handling, enabled real-time vehicle/status updates, improved resource allocation, increased firefighter and equipment availability, and reduced incident-handling costs.

Bouches-Du-Rhône Fire Brigade

Marc Vitalbo

Head of the IT department