Team Lead: Daryl Cober
Team Members: Jeff Darroch, Mike Cote, Steve Fraser

The Need:
For over 30 years, North American legislation has required a Fire Safety Plan (FSP) for most commercial, industrial and assembly buildings. These plans, averaging 50 pages in length, contain vital building information which can be invaluable in a fire crisis. With over eight million commercial buildings, fire departments have a paper storage demon and, worse, these plans are not readily available during an emergency response. They are also too lengthy to provide quick access to critical information. We developed software to accommodate the fact that fire plan requirements vary by jurisdiction, and are completed by either consultants or the building owner.

The Solution:
Three years of development resulted in a patent-pending, web-based software, called eZfireplan, which powers the entire fire safety life cycle. Our application provides a managed document solution for varying jurisdictions, building types, and uses. It allows consultants to brand and customize the plans, and fire departments access for approval.

The technology used included Visual Studio, IIS & SQL Server. A hosted ASP solution solves many problems for the users including extremely secure, locked down municipal networks. Scalability and reliability come from multi-tier architecture and multiple Windows Servers.

The Result:
To date, there are some 350 commercial buildings on the system with 33 consulting firms across Canada using the application regularly, plus another 51 who have set up an account to use it at the first opportunity. There are currently 49 fire departments (including two in the U.S.) that are using the system or have approved fire safety plans generated by the system.

Final Thought:
eZfireplan is positioned to become the de facto emergency response and life saving tool for many fire departments. Not only does the application reduce asset loss and improve emergency response efficiency, but it also can improve firefighter safety and save lives. As well, eZfireplan helps increase Fire Safety Awareness in the community, a fact every expert agrees is beneficial in reducing fire-related injuries and fatalities.