The Fort Wayne Fire Department (FWFD) will soon have new, state-of-the-art radios to improve communication during a fire.
The bulk of the cost was picked up by a grant.
The current radios have been in service since 2011 and are no longer supported by the vendor.
“It’s like going from a Nokia flip phone to getting your first iPhone,” firefighter Kamron Bell said during a training session. “I didn’t know a radio could do that.”
The ability to talk from firefighter to firefighter inside a burning building is critical to staying safe.
“You want to make sure that you can hear and know what’s going to be expected of you and without the radio, you wouldn’t have that,” Bell added.