Sterling Fire Department rolls out software program allowing homes, businesses to share critical information

STERLING – The Sterling Fire Department rolled out a new software program Friday that it said will help firefighters and first responders save time and lives when responding to calls.

Sterling Community Connect is a software program from the parent company First Due. Sterling Deputy Fire Chief David Northcutt said it allows residents to share important information about their homes and businesses with their local fire departments, such as how many people and pets live in the home or building, utility shutoff and Knox Box locations, contact information, and more.

“It also allows us to know if someone is bedridden and what side of the house their bedroom is on,” Northcutt said Friday. “People can share how many floors there are in the building, fire hydrant locations, what type of building it is and even upload photos of those living there. This advanced knowledge allows us to pre-plan as we head out on calls, saving precious time.”

The program provides firefighters and first responders an overhead satellite view of the property, with symbols showing important locations around the building and any other shared information.

“If we’re going to a fire, we have somebody walk the building and, on their way around it, we’re looking for utilities to shut them off,” Northcutt said. “Now, we know exactly where they’re at as we’re walking. We can also use this as a command tool to check boxes like if the utilities are secured and mutual aid’s been called for.”

Sharing information is voluntary and easy. Sterling residents can create their Community Connect profile at communityconnect.io/info/il-sterling and provide whatever information they’d like. According to First Due, that information is never used for any other purpose, and all logins and passwords are protected with bank-level encryption and security.

Sterling Fire Department Administrative Assistant Angelica Dornes said Community Connect also works with the department’s smoke alarm program.

“If somebody needs a smoke alarm, they can come in and we’ll do the install for them,” Dornes said. “Sometimes, they prefer to pick it up and do it on their own, but once they register through Community Connect, they can just add a request right there, fill out the general information, and it comes directly to us. Then, I will give them a call and set up a day and time when we can come out. So they don’t even have to make that initial phone call.”

The one caveat with the system is it only allows homes and businesses within a community’s jurisdiction to register. This means anyone outside of Sterling cannot connect with the program, but other communities such as Rock Falls – which Northcutt said also will be using the program – can set up a Community Connect system for their city.

Northcutt and Dornes are encouraging Sterling residents to register and start sharing their information.

“We’re anxious to get people to start sending this information so we can make our responses quicker and better,” Northcutt said.