By SOPHIA KAZMI   
Contra Costa Times

A grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will be used to purchase wireless technology to help Alameda County fire departments communicate more effectively.

With $612,516 in federal money, the Alameda County Fire Department will invest in a regional data communication system that will help track where fire engines are and provide information about a given scene of a fire or other incident.

Laptops will be installed in 75 engines that use the county's emergency dispatch system, which also includes the cities of Fremont, Alameda and Union City. The laptops will have a GPS modem that will allow dispatch personnel to know where engines and crews are and send the closest unit to respond to a problem, said Assistant Chief Jim Purchio.

"It's technology out there now that's based on cell phones," Purchio said.

Having the wireless communication will allow for quicker response times and also inform firefighters about incident scenes, how to get inside, where fire hydrants are and other important information before they get there.

Purchio said access to information about hazardous material situations will be easier. Instead of poring through binders of information to find which buildings contain what kinds of hazardous material, fire captains will be able to get all that on computer screens.

The Alameda County Regional Emergency Communications Center dispatches more than 55,000 calls for service each year. The center also covers the fire departments at Camp Parks in Dublin and at the Lawrence Livermore Lab.

Because the Lawrence Livermore and Camp Parks fire departments are under federal government jurisdiction, the grant money cannot be used to equip those department's engines, Purchio said.

Lab spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said while the firefighters there will not directly benefit from the grant money with new equipment, the new technology will improve overall central dispatch communication. She also added this will help create a more unified system among departments sharing the central dispatch system.

"It's a benefit to the lab," she said.