The whole call, on one screen. Even with no signal.
MapBook puts your pre-plans, water sources and access boxes on the same map as live 911 dispatch — then alerts your members, shows who is responding, and keeps working when the network doesn't.
Written by a volunteer lieutenant with 20 years in the fire service • In daily use at the Clinton Volunteer Fire Department, Clinton, Connecticut
One system, from pre-plan to after-action
MapBook started as a way to retire the paper map binder. It has grown into the software a department runs its calls on.
Before the call
Everything you'd have looked up in the binder
The pre-plan work your department already does, made searchable, shareable, and current — instead of photocopied and out of date.
Interactive mapping
Vector maps of your whole response area with streets, satellite and hybrid basemaps. Zoom thresholds keep the map readable — hydrants first, then occupancies, then access boxes — instead of burying you in pins.
Every water source
Wet and dry hydrants, draft points, cisterns and inground tanks, with flow rate, static pressure, status and inspection dates. Departments define their own supply types and how each one looks on the map.
Occupancy pre-plans
Building profiles with hazards, tap-to-dial contacts, photos and special considerations. Parent-child structure handles malls, campuses and multi-unit buildings the way they're actually addressed.
Access boxes
Knox boxes and key vaults with box and serial numbers, install and inspection dates, photos, and links to the occupancies they open. Boxes on a parent building show on its units too.
Points of interest
Your own map layers with colors and icons — hazard zones, staging areas, gates, dead-end roads, drafting sites. Anything specific to your district that isn't on a commercial map.
Import and export
Bring hydrants, occupancies and access boxes in from CSV or GeoJSON, and see a full preview of exactly what will be created and changed before a single row is written.
During the call
From the tone drop to the tailboard
Most tools in this category do alerting or mapping. MapBook runs the call — dispatch, alerting, response tracking and radio in one place.
Live 911 dispatch
Your dispatch center already sends you every call. MapBook turns those dispatch emails into located calls on the map automatically — call number, type, units and dispatch time come through, and the call is matched to your own occupancy record when it recognizes the address.
Push alerts to every phone
Dispatch reaches members' phones through native iOS and Android apps, with the app closed and the screen locked. Android alerts run on a high-importance channel of their own, separate from department messages.
Responding status
Members mark where they're headed — station, scene, wherever you define — and everyone sees who's coming and how many. Statuses expire on their own so the board never goes stale.
Radio, live and recorded
Stream your department's dispatch audio in the app, on the truck or at home. Optionally record it: each transmission is kept as its own clip on a timeline of the day, so you can replay the one you missed. When your tones drop, members get an alert, and each picks which tones they want. Runs on a radio receiver at your station that we supply ready to go.
Station display
An always-on wall screen for the apparatus bay. At rest it shows the map and recent alerts; when a call lands it splits to the scene map, the responders coming in, and the dispatch text. Runs on a display box we supply ready to go.
Works with no signal
Maps, pre-plans, water sources and calls are cached on the device. Edits and photos queue locally and sync the moment you're back in coverage — no dead screen at the far end of the district.
Running the department
The parts the chief has to answer for
Membership, records and accountability — the questions that come up at budget time and in the after-action, not on the fireground.
Department messaging
Announcements to the whole department, to a group, or to specific members — with push delivery, edit-in-place, and no third-party service injecting text into your dispatch feed.
Maintenance tracking
Flag hydrants for snow removal or repair, report issues, and clear them — individually or in bulk across hundreds at once. Every change is logged with who did it and when.
Incident records
Log incidents with event timelines, notes and photo attachments, linked to the occupancy they happened at. Every building's call history is on its record.
Two-factor and audit trail
Optional or department-required two-factor sign-in, plus an audit trail of every change, every login, and every cross-department access — the record security questionnaires ask for.
Roles and permissions
Granular permissions on top of admin, user and viewer roles, with user groups for stations and companies. Departments are isolated from each other at the database level, not just in the interface.
Every device you already have
Native iPhone and Android apps, plus the same screens in any browser — truck computers and station desktops. Nothing to install on an MDT.
Built by firefighters, for firefighters
MapBook isn't a software company's idea of what a fire department needs. It was written by a volunteer lieutenant with 20 years in the fire service and EMS. Every feature is inspired by real-world experiences while responding to incidents.
How a call actually runs
Four things happen before you get your boots on
This is the part that separates MapBook from a mapping app. The call comes in and the system does the work — you just read the screen.
Dispatch pushes the button
MapBook reads your dispatch center's alert the moment it arrives — no polling, no delay, no third-party service in the middle. The call type, number, units and dispatch time are parsed out and the address is placed on the map.
Every phone goes off
Members get a native push notification with the app closed and the phone locked. On Android it runs on a high-importance dispatch channel of its own, so a call sounds different from everything else on the phone at 3am.
The board fills in
Members mark where they're headed. The officer sees who is coming and where before anyone reaches the station, and the wall display in the bay shows the same thing to whoever walks in.
The building is already on file
If the address matches an occupancy you've pre-planned, the call links straight to it — hazards, contacts, Knox box, photos and the building's own call history, in one tap, on the way.
In the bay
The station display everyone walks past
A wall-mounted screen that sits idle showing the district map and recent alerts, then splits to the active scene the instant a call drops — map, responders and the dispatch text, readable from across the apparatus floor.
Pairs like a TV app: the screen shows a code, an admin approves it, done. Any modern 1080p or better TV works, with a MapBook display box behind it that we supply preloaded and configured — no per-screen licence.
See it running before you decide anything
Twenty minutes on a call, looking at a department that runs on it every day — live dispatch, real pre-plans, a real district. Ask anything. No obligation and no sales team: you'll be talking to the person who wrote it.
See it on real data
Not a sandbox with six pins in it. A working district with hydrants, pre-plans and calls coming in while you watch.
Check your dispatch fits
If your center emails dispatch alerts, forward us one and we'll tell you whether it parses — before you spend anything.
Get your own set up
Once you're in, importing your hydrants and wiring up your dispatch is part of onboarding — not something you do alone.
Prefer email? Reach us directly at sales@fdmapbook.com