As technology evolves, so too must the practices and policies that govern its use. In recent decades, the fire service has adopted tools like location tracking at incident scenes, remote SCBA monitoring, and live-streaming from thermal imagers. These advancements have expanded our operational capabilities and given incident commanders (ICs) a more comprehensive view of unfolding events.
Now, we’re entering the era of wearable technology. Smartwatches, rings and fitness monitors are increasingly common, and products are available today that enable fire service leaders to monitor health data in real time. But with these new tools come important questions, particularly around privacy, policies and firefighter autonomy.