Firefighter response system

1. A method for identifying available resources for responding to an incident, the method comprising:

receiving a communication from each of a plurality of first responders, where the communication is responsive to an incident generated request;

processing each of the communications to generate a response status selected from at least three response status types for each of the plurality of first responders; and

sending the response status for each of the plurality of first responders, response status information for each of a plurality of fire stations of a fire department, and a total number of responders for the fire department to a remote program for display on a graphical user interface generated by the remote program.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating a display based on the response status of each of the plurality of first responders for the graphical user interface generated by the remote program, where the first responders include volunteer firefighter first responders.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein different response status types are displayed in different colors of a color code.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

displaying a response report on the graphical user interface, the response report including incident response statistics based on previous response status information of the volunteer firefighter first responders of the plurality of first responders, the incident response statistics including individual volunteer firefighter first responder statistics and response unit statistics.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least three response status types include responding, arrived, and checked out.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the response status includes an estimate of an amount of time for the first responder to respond to the incident and at least one of a firefighter rank and an emergency medical services rank for the first responder.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein processing the communication includes identifying the first responder based on a telephone number from which the communication is generated.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the communication includes at least one of a telephonic message and a text-based message.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the remote program is executable on a client device and the response status for each of the plurality of first responders is sent to the client device via a network.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of first responders are associated with different response units, and the response status for each of the plurality of first responders is sent to a plurality of remote programs associated with the different response units, the remote programs configured to display a graphical user interface having a view corresponding to each of the different response units and the response status for each of the plurality of first responders associated with the response units.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the first responder is a volunteer firefighter that sends the communication via telephone, and

wherein processing the communication includes identifying a telephone number from which the communication is generated in order to identify the volunteer firefighter, identifying the called telephone number to identify a fire station that the volunteer firefighter is associated with, and determining whether or not the firefighter is responding to the incident.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the communications from the plurality of first responders is generated via a hybrid tone pager device, the communication indicating that a volunteer firefighter is responding to the incident, and the communication initiated based on user input from the volunteer firefighter.

13. A method for presenting incident response information, the method comprising:

displaying response status information for each of a plurality of fire stations of a fire department and a total number of responders for the fire department on a graphical user interface;

receiving a change in response status information of at least one of the plurality of fire stations; and

updating the graphical user interface to display the change in response status information of the at least one of the plurality of fire stations and the total number of responders for the fire department.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

displaying a total number of responders for each of the plurality of fire stations of the fire department.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

displaying response status information for each of a plurality of responders for each of the plurality of fire stations.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein the response status information for each of the plurality of responders includes a color code where a different color corresponds to a different response status type.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the response status information includes at least one of an estimated time of arrival, firefighter rank, emergency medical services rank, time at which a reply is received, date on which a reply is received, an arrival status, and a checkout status.

18. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

displaying a response report having incident response statistics based on previous response status information of the plurality of fire stations.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the incident response statistics include individual responder statistics and response unit statistics.

20. The method of claim 13 wherein the change in response status information is received via telephone, and the change in response status information corresponds to an intention to respond.

21. The method of claim 13 wherein the change in response status information is received via user input into a computing device.

22. An incident response system, comprising:

a communication receiver configured to catalogue an incoming communication from each of a plurality of volunteer firefighters, each of the communications being catalogued according to a dialed telephone number; and

an incident response program configured to determine a response status for each of the plurality of volunteer firefighters based on each of the communications, the incident response program having a graphical user interface configured to display the response status for each of the plurality of volunteer firefighters associated with a common dialed telephone number, and display a response report having incident response statistics based on previous response status information of the plurality of volunteer firefighters;

wherein the graphical user interface is further configured to display response status information for each of a plurality of fire stations of a fire department and a total number of responders for the fire department.

23. The incident response system of claim 22 wherein each unique telephone number corresponds to a different fire station.

24. The incident response system of claim 22 , wherein the incoming communication from at least one of the plurality of volunteer firefighters is generated by at least one of a hybrid tone pager that includes a UHF/VHF receiver to receive a response request and a one-touch user input to generate the incoming communication, a radio frequency identification device that generates the incoming communication in a proximal range of the communication receiver, and a global positioning device that generates the incoming communication.

25. A method for identifying available resources for responding to an incident, the method comprising:

receiving a communication from each of a plurality of first responders, the communication being generated by at least one of a hybrid tone pager that includes a UHF/VHF receiver to receive a response request and a one-touch user input to generate the communication, a radio frequency identification device that generates the communication in a proximal range of a communication receiver, and a global positioning device that generates the communication;

processing each communication to generate response status information for each of the plurality of first responders;

sending the response status information for each of the plurality of first responders to a remote program;

displaying the response status information for each of the plurality of first responders on a graphical user interface generated by the remote program; and

displaying response status information for each of a plurality of fire stations of a fire department and a total number of responders for the fire department on the graphical user interface.