Over the years, hazard zone communications have proven a difficult challenge to fully solve. The specifics have evolved – from analog to digital and handhelds to trunked systems – but the core difficulties have been remarkably persistent.
Radio coverage can still have gaps. Channels can become congested. PPE makes communicating difficult. Intelligibility suffers.
Like many firefighters over the years, Don Herbert developed a workaround. As a helicopter rescuer in the military, where he served amid a fire-service career of more than three decades, he was issued a TCI Liberator headset from Safariland to use. “They handed me that,” he recalled, “and I started realizing how good communications could actually be.”
He liked that headset so much while serving, he purchased his own for use on the job once back stateside. At the time it wasn’t made for burning buildings, but it performed better than the alternatives he had – and that may have saved lives.
While off duty one day, Herbert loaned the headset to a colleague who responded to a restaurant fire. He was on the roof, part of a team doing ventilation operations. As flames spread over the interior ceiling beneath them, firefighters inside issued an evacuation warning. But with saws cutting and other noise on the roof, that colleague was the only one to hear it. As his team got off the roof, it collapsed.
“Without that headset, they never would have heard that communication, and they probably would have fallen in and potentially had some fatalities,” Herbert said. “I can come up with a million anecdotes about communication failures, but that’s an evidence-based one.”
‘You just go about your business’
In mesh networks, instead of relying on towers or repeaters, each individually worn device can connect directly to, and act as a relay for, multiple other devices. Instead of everything depending on a central tower or dispatcher, messages jump from node to node until they reach their recipient.
Safariland
Nearly two decades later, Herbert is a technical specialist for Safariland’s communications products, and the company has an advanced new all-hazards comms solution developed to resolve many of those problems that once plagued him and other firefighters. Its new SafariMesh system is a decentralized, self-forming mesh network that allows teams to maintain voice connectivity even without traditional radio infrastructure in virtually any scenario they encounter – not only structure fires but wildland, hazmat, search and rescue responses and more.
In mesh networks, instead of relying on towers or repeaters, each individually worn device can connect directly to, and act as a relay for, multiple other devices. Instead of everything depending on a central tower or dispatcher, messages jump from node to node until they reach their recipient. Think of it not like the traditional hub-and-spoke design but as a web, with many interconnected paths.
What that means is, if a node is lost, messages simply reroute, and others absorb the load. Users can drop out and back in without impacting the system’s overall operation. This makes the system self-healing and exceptionally resilient, without potential single points of failure.
“SafariMesh is independent of any radio or terrestrial system out there,” Herbert explained. “What it does is create a voice-operated duplex communication system that meets the AES-256 standard for encryption and is designed so you can always have two hands free. Whether you’re operating tools, fighting fire with a nozzle, doing a rescue, climbing a ladder, swinging an axe or ventilating a roof, you can communicate while performing your work without ever having to stop to hit a push-to-talk. You just go about your business.”
Why free hands are important
That hands-free aspect is important. Fire-rescue communications have evolved to an extent, but most options still need some kind of tactile activation. Speaker mics and SCBA-integrated systems still typically require triggering a push-to-talk. Remote PTT buttons can relocate and simplify that but not eliminate it. Bone conduction microphones can be expensive and hard to fit, and wireless headsets/in-mask comms are often limited to specialized teams.
SafariMesh relies on voice activation, with advanced technology to prevent false transmissions. Voice Activity Detection (VAD) analyzes audio input for characteristics of human speech, and if it’s identified, Voice-Operated Exchange (VOX) technology activates the system for automatic transmission. Adding the VAD prevents the system from being triggered by wind, engines, heavy breathing or other noise, producing more reliable comms.
“That was very important to us in developing this: We want the firefighter to always be able to have two hands available mitigating, rescuing, extinguishing, destroying, salvaging and overhauling and looking for hidden fire,” said Herbert. “We want them to be free but able to communicate. I should be able to be pulling a ceiling and still communicating with my team: ‘Hey, guys, I found hidden fire, get me the hand line in here.’ I shouldn’t have to stop, grab my speaker mic, ask for that hand line and get nothing in response.”
The SafariMesh system includes the Liberator IV REDLINE headset and SafariMesh module and can be worn with all self-contained breathing apparatus, respirators and helmets commonly used in the fire-rescue service. No pairing is required. It comes in a rugged form factor, is USB-C rechargeable with a 200-hour operating period and has ingress protection against water spray and fine dust. The SafariMesh advanced module can connect to LMR for full comms integration.
Its communications travel over noncompetitive portions of spectrum with strong propagation across varied terrain. Where signals face more obstacles – for instance, in large buildings with lots of metal and reinforced concrete – crews can bolster transmissions by just adding nodes.
The system can scale up to 50 users within a 650-square-foot area. On a single conventional talk path, traditional LMR is typically limited to one speaker at a time. This often creates bottlenecks and delays. SafariMesh allows multiple users to transmit messages at the same time.
“I often wonder how much time and efficiency are lost waiting in a queue to talk on a radio or hear a command instead of having the real-time ability to have a normal conversation like you can with SafariMesh,” said Brad Medine, who leads Safariland’s communications product category. “It allows a conversation like we’re having right now, as opposed to waiting for your turn, then waiting for a message back, then finding out it wasn’t even for you. The amount of inefficiency in that seems almost impossible to quantify.”
An all-hazards approach
Fire suppression, of course, is only a small part of modern firefighters’ job. As the convergence of two big recent trends in emergency services communications – true hands-free voice with noise filtering and wearable mesh systems – SafariMesh is suitable for daily use and other kinds of responses. That includes hazmat situations, as a recent experience demonstrated.
Safariland works with a Florida-based training group that delivers a variety of rescue instruction and conducts a yearly competition at the state hazardous materials conference. This year Herbert was there with a SafariMesh demonstration set.
“I put it on their heads when they did the competition, and they blew everybody away,” he said. “Wearing our communication gear, they didn’t have to yell and do hand signals and sign language to each other wearing level A suits. They said that’s the first time they’ve been able to communicate effectively with each other in level A since they’ve been doing this.”
That same month, the company debuted the product at SHOT (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade) Show, the large annual trade show for the firearms, ammunition, law enforcement and outdoor recreation industries. It got an enthusiastic reception.
“I think it was mind-blowing for many agencies,” said Medine. “We had several walk in without any intention to even look at it, because they didn’t initially fully understand its capabilities. But when we demonstrated how it improves the way they can communicate, I don’t think we have anybody not get it. As soon as they tried it, they were like, ‘Oh, this is the way it’s supposed to be!’”
Because the network itself is worn, it can also move with personnel. That can be useful in cases like wildland fires, where LMR network coverage is unreliable, or disaster response, where the LMR network has been damaged. The noise-canceling boom microphone helps preserve voice clarity even on high-volume rescue scenes.
“Our guys love it because even on something like a structural collapse, they can hear communications,” said Herbert. “They can be hammering nails. They can be cutting wood. ‘OK, I understand you. The next cut needs to be 12¾ inches – got it.’ There’s no running back and forth with a pencil and a tape measure anymore.
“The fire and rescue service is continuously required to do more with less, and the addition of hands-free two-way communications is one big way to relieve much of that pressure. It benefits a lot of situations – not just suppression but really everything the fire service is involved in.”
Grant assistance is often available to help obtain emergency communications systems. For more information on SafariMesh, visit Safarilandredline.com.
