[Scan-DC] Firewire feeds loyal following

[Alan Henney]

Statesville Record & Landmark (NC)

NEWS

JONATHAN WEAVER COLUMN: Iredell Firewire feeds loyal following

Jonathan Weaver
27 June 2017

If there was any question about what the public felt about the efforts of the Iredell County Firewire Facebook page, the answer came loud and clear when the page administrator announced he was shutting it down in January.

After a user posted a photo of a car involved in a fatal crash, Dan (who didn't want his last name used for this column) got threats from another user about the photo. He's often on the road working in the transportation industry, so at the time he decided it wasn't worth the headaches when his family was often home alone.

His followers were having none of it.

"This is just horrible news," wrote Gerri Hall Gentry. "I relied on this site for safety for my family, my business which is transportation, and for community."

"Thank you so much for what you did for us ... I will truly miss this page," Lorie Goble posted.

THE BIRTH OF THE FIREWIRE

If you're not one of the now nearly 12,000 followers (a total that would draw envy from many small businesses and news operations), here's what the Firewire is all about:

"The Firewire reports on fire-rescue calls in Mooresville and Iredell County," the Facebook description says. "Posts are from scanner traffic and are not official releases."

The operation is run out of Dan's Mooresville home. There he has a few scanners and commercial radios, including a Uniden Bearcat TrunkTracker running into an Apple laptop. The feed goes online through the Broadcastify service. For more serious calls, Dan and the few others helping out as administrators post based on what they hear -- bad crashes, fires and other major public safety events. The Facebook account is connected to a Twitter account, so the posts go up on both platforms.

Dan, who originally hails from Western New York, has been a self-described radio enthusiast for as long as he can remember. His father and grandfather were in law enforcement, and he got his first scanner in the fifth grade. He hooked it to his bike and it hasn't left his side since, he says.

Soon as he was old enough, he became a firefighter and medic and spent 15 years with a scanner by his ear. After his wife took a job in North Carolina a few years back, he planned to continue with the fire service. But he learned that all his New York training credits wouldn't transfer.

While it wasn't a replacement, he figured creating a Facebook page might be a suitable substitute, he says.

Operations like the Iredell Firewire are big up north, Dan says. And in the two years since it started, similar ones are cropping up in North Carolina regularly. Many surrounding counties have one now.

The daily traffic congestion in Mooresville was his focus at first.

"It's a tremendous issue just to get around town, but when there's an accident, it's so much worse," Dan says. "I thought about the person driving to the Harris Teeter to get a loaf of bread - wouldn't they want to know if there's an accident and if they need to take another route?"

The operation got a huge boost from its real-time coverage of the Statesville flooding in August 2016. Their online scanner had more than 400 listeners that day.

Some area public safety workers bristled at the concept. They just didn't see the value in it and were concerned about safety, Dan says.

But some in public safety in outlying areas believe in the efforts.

"They understand what's going on and they're responsible about what they post," said Bill Suthard, a public information officer with the Huntersville Fire Department who also works with the Charlotte Fire Department.

Suthard, who's become something of a pioneer in the use of social media to get immediate word out about public safety situations, also faced scorn when he started his efforts. But "the way I see it, I'm a firm believer in sharing as much information as I can. My argument is always 'I'm the way it should be.'"

Suthard also believes that due to most agencies being funded by tax dollars, there's an obligation to get the word out.

"I applaud and embrace anyone that does the same thing ... I look at what (Firewire) offers as a partnership," Suthard says.

BY POPULAR DEMAND

Three weeks after the shutdown announcement, Iredell Firewire returned strong as ever.

Messages and photos continue to stream in daily. They get submissions from people who came up on an accident, as well from those wanting to know why the firetruck raced down their street.

And many times, it's folks working in the public safety sector sharing information, Dan says.

We at the Record & Landmark, too, took notice during the floods and met with Dan about the service. We now partner and share the Broadcastify feed and the service's tweets on our public safety page at statesville.com/news/public_safety.

In the daily gathering of news, it's invaluable help for us assessing newsworthy situations. We agree with Iredell residents like William Griffin of Harmony, who actively reports information to the site when necessary.

Asked about the importance of the service, Griffin said: "I hope that there will never be a shutdown of the page. It is so vital to the community and members of the page. I do think he's doing a great job and is a great service to the community."

Follow the Iredell County Firewire at facebook.com/ICFIREWIRE/.