Notes from a life in public safety.
Practical ideas on technology, marketing, recruitment and department leadership across public safety, grounded in nearly four decades of personal experience in fire and EMS and a career building content, services and tools for agencies across the field.
Dave Iannone
Founder & CPO, First Arriving
Dave Iannone is founder and Chief Product Officer of First Arriving. A longtime fire service leader and public safety journalist, he co-founded Firehouse.com and was inducted into the Firehouse Hall of Fame in 2024.
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Why Your Best Recruit Quits in Year One
Nobody quits the day they sign up. They quit somewhere between the paperwork and the first real assignment, and most departments never notice until the seat is empty.
Start Recruiting: Public Safety Strategies That Actually Work
A flyer, a social post and an application link do not create a recruitment program. Strong agencies connect marketing, prospect tracking, personal follow-up and onboarding.
The Demo Trap
The best demo and the best software are not the same thing. One is built to impress a room. The other has to survive your worst Tuesday.
Public Safety Doesn’t Need More Disconnected Software. It Needs Platforms That Work Together.
Most agencies already have plenty of technology. The larger problem is that CAD, scheduling, training, records and communication systems rarely work together.
What Growing Up in a Firehouse Taught Me
Dave arrived at HVFD at 12 years old looking for direction and belonging. The department did more than teach him the fire service. It helped raise him.
Leading a Firehouse That Doesn't Want to Change
You cannot memo your way into a firehouse's trust. Real change management is culture work, done person by person, long before the new policy ever gets announced.
Practical Guides
Evergreen, detailed resources for public safety leaders. Read them here, or download each as a polished PDF you can share with your team.
Choosing
a vendor
a vendor
Guide to Selecting a Public Safety SaaS Vendor
Features and price are only part of a software decision. This guide helps public safety agencies evaluate the complete service, infrastructure and company behind a SaaS platform.
Recruiting
that works
that works
Maximizing Recruitment Marketing for Volunteer Fire and EMS Departments
Marketing can attract a prospective volunteer, but timely and persistent follow-up determines what happens next. Learn how to connect campaigns, people and process.
Your digital
home
home
Guide to Building a Fire/EMS Website That Serves Your Community and Strengthens Your Department
A fire/EMS department website should be more than an online brochure. These 20 essential features can make it a useful home for residents, recruits, members and community partners.
Connected department
tools
tools
Guide to Organizing and Managing a Fire Department with Online Tools
Online tools can simplify fire department administration when they share data, reflect real workflows and replace duplicate entry instead of adding another disconnected system.
Beyond the
bay doors
bay doors
Beyond the Bay Doors: A Fire Department Open House Playbook
A practical guide to planning, promoting and delivering a fire department open house your community will remember.
Who owns your
data
data
Guide to Public Safety Software Security and Data Ownership
Public safety agencies should know where their information lives, who can access it, how it is recovered and what happens to every record when the vendor relationship ends.
Interactive Tools
Free assessments and calculators built for public safety agencies — answer a few questions and get a scored result, findings and next steps.
AssessmentTechnology Continuity Risk CheckFind the preventable technology risks — single points of failure, unclear ownership, missing backups — before they become an emergency.
BuilderTechnology Connection MapperMap where your systems don’t talk to each other, where staff waste time on duplicate entry, and where connecting (not replacing) would help most.
Browse by Series
Every insight, guide and tool grouped into six topics — pick the one closest to what you’re working on.
Recruitment & RetentionGetting new members in the door, keeping the ones you have, and measuring whether either is actually working.
Public Safety TechnologyThe systems a fire or EMS department runs on day to day — membership management, dashboards, and moving off the spreadsheet that's quietly running the department.
Websites & Digital PresenceBuilding the public-facing home a department actually needs — a website and online presence that serves the community and doesn’t let members down.
Internal CommunicationsKeeping information moving inside the department — the dashboards, channels and habits that replace the group text and the whiteboard nobody reads.
Events & CommunityOpen houses, fire prevention week, and the other ways a department shows up for the community it serves — plus what it takes to plan and budget them well.
Vendor EvaluationChoosing, vetting and holding public safety software vendors accountable — RFPs, build-vs-buy, security and data ownership, and reading past the sales pitch.