Fire & EMS¶
The Fire & EMS terminal is the mobile data console for fire apparatus and medical units. Open it from the Fire & EMS tile on the hub. It mirrors the Law Enforcement MDT but with fire/EMS status codes, patient tools, and medical reports.
Everything you work is coordinated with Dispatch, and your apparatus shows on the live map when your CAD account is linked to your in-game character (see FiveM).
Two ways to run it, and three looks
Most communities run one combined Fire & EMS department, which is what this page describes throughout. If you would rather run fire and medical as separate agencies, you can; see Running fire and EMS separately. Either way, each department picks the console look it wears.
Going on duty¶
Fire & EMS runs on FIRE_EMS departments (e.g. SAFR, EMS). On the go-on-duty card you pick:
- Server: only when your community runs more than one server (choose it before going on duty; your unit and all dispatch traffic are scoped to it).
- Department: click the department tile (its uploaded logo fills the head emblem). If the surface has a single department it is auto-selected.
- Station: if your community configured station houses for that department, choose the station you are running out of. It shows on your status strip and prefills fire reports.
- Apparatus: your unit callsign (e.g.
E-12,M-7). - Type: what kind of unit this is (Engine, Ladder, Rescue, Battalion, Medic, ALS, BLS…). It fills the Type column on the units board. The list suggests the common ones but the field is free text, so type your own if your community names its apparatus differently. Change it later from Modify Login without going off duty.
- Badge / ID: your personal firefighter/medic ID (e.g.
FF-204). Fire/EMS units carry both an apparatus callsign and a personal badge, so this field is always shown. - Capabilities: self-select what the rig/crew is certified for (Engine, Ladder, Rescue, Ambulance, etc.).
Station houses are admin-configured
The station list comes from the department's Stations in Admin. If no stations are set for your department, the Station picker is hidden and you just log in with your apparatus and badge.
Link your game character
Use Link FiveM Game on the login card (or from the MORE menu) to generate a one-time /cadlink <code> command. Run it in-game (valid 10 minutes) so your apparatus appears on the live map. See FiveM.
Roster-managed members only see the departments and capabilities their roster assigns; owners and super-admins see everything.
The chrome¶
The terminal has the familiar CAD window layout:
- Title bar / menu bar:
Login/Logout,Calls,Reports(Fire Run, PCR, Med Entry, Refusal),Messages,Tools(Map, Modify Login / Apparatus),Help. - Status strip: shows your Station, Apparatus (callsign · #badge), current Call, and status color.
- Toolbar row 1 (screens): Back, Map, Display Call, Calls, New Call, Patient Lookup, Records, Msgs, Unit Times.
- Toolbar row 2 (status): the fire/EMS status buttons plus More, Units, and Blackout Screen.
- Panic / broadcast banners: active panic alerts and dispatch broadcasts drop in across the top of the workspace.
- MORE menu: a tile grid with everything: New Call, Change Location, Change Problem, Modify Login, Fire Run, PCR, Medical Entry, Refusal of Care, Patient Lookup, Records Console, Messages, Unit Times, Time Stamp, Link FiveM Game, Logout, and a light/dark toggle.
MDT skins¶
Each fire or EMS department chooses the look its console wears. Set it in Admin → Departments on the department itself, picking from previews of the real thing:
| Skin | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Standard MDT | The shared PulseCAD console, the same one Law Enforcement and Dispatch use. Blue chrome, navigation across the top. |
| Fire MDT | Dark red. Navigation moves into a vertical rail down the right-hand side, and the status row goes flat with underline indicators. |
| EMS MDT | Light clinical teal. Large color-coded status tiles and a numbered status readout (11 - AVAILABLE), in the style of a legacy medical CAD. |
| Retro MDT | A green phosphor terminal in Windows XP chrome: monospace tables, bracketed buttons, amber function keys. |
| Spillman | A Windows console in fire red, with the call queue and apparatus board on screen permanently and everything else opening as a window over them. See the Spillman console. |
Looks change what you see, never what is recorded
Statuses, calls, reports and permissions behave identically whichever look you are on, and all of them are free on every plan.
Every look but Spillman is a repaint of the same console. Spillman is a different console over the same data: the same buttons exist, the same F-keys work, and nothing about a call, a status or a report is stored differently - so a crew on Spillman and a crew on the Fire MDT can run the same incident and Dispatch cannot tell them apart.
Members can pick their own. What the community sets in Admin is the department default: what the agency looks like out of the box and for everyone who never changes it. Any member can choose a different one for themselves under MORE → Display on the terminal, and it follows them across browsers, the station, and the desktop app.
Picking the one marked (default) puts you back on your department's choice, and keeps you tracking it if the owner changes it later.
The numbered status readout on the EMS skin comes from the short label on each status code, so it is yours to change or clear in Admin → Dispatch & Records → Status Codes. A combined Fire & EMS department has no numbers set by default and simply shows the plain label.
The in-game tablet always uses Standard MDT
The Fire skin's side rail needs more width than the in-game CAD tablet has, so the tablet renders the Standard console whatever the department is set to. Nothing to configure.
Skins are separate from the per-terminal color themes in Design & Theme, which recolor a surface rather than change its layout. You can use both.
Keyboard shortcuts¶
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F1 | Map |
| F2 | New Call (self-generate) |
| F6 | Patient Lookup |
| F8 | Display Call (open your active incident) |
| F9 | Call queue |
| F10 | Records |
| Esc | Close the top modal / menu |
Shortcuts only fire while you are on duty, no modal is open, and you are not typing in a field.
Panic alerts
Fire/EMS crews receive panic alerts on the panic banner. Officer panic is triggered in-game or from the LE MDT; see FiveM.
Status set¶
Set your status from the second toolbar row. Statuses gate on being attached to an incident where noted, and colors follow your community's status configuration.
| Button | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| IN QTRS / AVL | In quarters / available | Clearing while on a call detaches you (and closes the call if you were the last unit on it). |
| ENROUTE | Responding | Requires an assigned incident. |
| STAGING | Staged near scene | Requires an assigned incident. Sits next to ENROUTE because crews often stage before committing to a scene. |
| ON SCENE | Arrived | Requires an assigned incident. |
| TRANS | Transporting | Opens a destination + patient/comments form; logs TRANSPORTING TO: … to the incident. |
| AT HOSP | At hospital | Sets your status in one tap. No form: you already recorded the destination when you went TRANS. |
| OOS | Out of service | Prompts for a reason code (admin-configurable). |
Transport to anywhere, not just the list
The TRANS destination field drops down the usual hospitals and facilities, but it is a free-text field, so type your own if you are taking a patient to a scene landing zone, a clinic, or another community. Whatever you enter, plus any patient notes, is written into the incident's log so dispatch and other responders can see where the patient is going.
Out-of-service reasons come from Admin → Dispatch & Records → Dispositions & OOS → Fire & EMS (defaults include Apparatus Maint, Refuel, Meal Break, Training, Station Duties, Restock Supplies, Decontamination).
Calls and incidents¶
Calls lists the active and pending calls you can see. Fire/EMS sees anything on its watch list plus every FIRE- or EMS-category call, so a fire apparatus still sees an EMS medical call even when Fire and EMS are separate departments with different abbreviations.
Open a call to reach the incident detail screen, which is shared with the other MDTs:
- Problem, address, location, postal, case #, time, division, INC#, priority, type, status.
- SELF ASSIGN to attach and go ENROUTE; ADD CMNT to add a log entry; ACK UPDATES to clear new updates; GENERATE CASE # for a records case number.
- MSG UNITS opens a message pre-addressed to every unit on the call; MAP IT jumps to the map.
- Tabs: INFO (units, primary, numbered log), PRIORS (prior calls at the address, click an INC# to open), CALLER, CAUTION, 2NDRY LOC.
The incident re-derives from live data, so comments, attached units, and transport destinations refresh without reopening.
Editing an incident¶
Two entries in the MORE grid change the call you are on:
- Change Location: move the incident to a new address, postal, or landmark. Cautionaries are re-checked for the new location.
- Change Problem: change the call type, problem text, or priority. The call-type list offers fire and medical types rather than the whole law-enforcement catalog.
Both need you to be attached to an incident, and both are the same screens the LE MDT uses, so an edit reads identically wherever it was made.
New Call (self-generate)¶
New Call (F2) lets you start your own run: pick a problem/type, set the location, and it creates the call, attaches your apparatus, sets you ENROUTE, and opens the incident, the same self-generate flow officers use on the LE MDT. Clear your current call first.
Units board¶
Units lists fire/EMS units on duty with agency, type/capability, status pill, location, call, and crew size. Use Watch List to also surface another agency's units and calls. Units you are watching from another agency show their status colors and short labels, not yours.
The button and the list are named for the skin you are on: Apparatus on the Fire MDT, Rigs on the EMS MDT, and Units on the Standard MDT.
Patient Lookup¶
Patient Lookup (F6) searches civilians by name + date of birth, SSN, or DL number and returns a medical-only patient card; no law-enforcement records are exposed. Searching by name requires the patient's date of birth (SSN and DL searches do not), and dates are MM/DD/YYYY. It shows:
- Demographics: name, DOB, sex, address, city/postal, height/weight, phone.
- Medical: blood type (highlighted), allergies, and medical history pulled from the civilian record.
- Alert banners: a red ALLERGIES banner when allergies are on file, plus flags for DECEASED, MISSING, or ACTIVE WARRANT.
Where medical data comes from
Blood type, allergies, and medical history are entered on the civilian's record in the Civilian portal. If nothing is recorded, allergies show as "NKA (No Known Allergies)".
Reports¶
Open Records (F10) or pick a report from the Reports menu / MORE grid. The Fire MDT uses the shared records engine with a fire/EMS form catalog:
| Report | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Fire / Medical Run | The NFIRS-style run report: times (dispatched/enroute/arrived/transporting/clear), apparatus & staffing (with Station), scene info, patient contact, resources utilized checklist, equipment, and narrative. |
| Patient Care Report (PCR) | Full patient care documentation: patient info, a detailed assessment block (vitals, AVPU, ECG, GCS scoring, etc.), a front/back body injury diagram with typed injury markers, treatment & care, and a narrative. |
| Medical Entry | A lighter medical record: patient info plus add-lists for history, medications, and allergies. |
| Refusal of Care | Refusal documentation: assessment, disclosure/acknowledgement points, narrative, and a patient signature request that can be routed to the patient's civilian portal. |
All reports support the shared engine's narrative, checkbox/checklist, crew, and certification blocks. Narrative text, checkboxes, and refusal signatures persist as you work.
Drafts survive logout
Unsaved report drafts are kept for 24 hours per user and community, so you can log out and come back to a half-finished report.
Map, messages, and tools¶
- Map (F1): the live map with your apparatus (fire styling) and visible units and calls; the footer shows your callsign and station.
- Messages: full inbox/compose/reply, with an unread notice on login and a flashing Msgs button. Compose from an incident with MSG UNITS.
- Unit Times: run a unit's call/time-stamp history (PULSECAD QUERY RETURN); click an INC# to open that incident.
- Time Stamp: log a timestamp entry to your unit history.
- Modify Login / Apparatus: change your department, callsign, badge, station, type, phone, or capabilities mid-shift without going off duty.
- Blackout Screen: dims the terminal.
FiveM station alerts¶
When dispatch assigns a fire/EMS unit and your community has the station alert plugin enabled, an in-game station alert fires (tones and a screen alert at the station), carrying the department, call category, nature, and location. See FiveM.
Fire/EMS calls also tone on-duty fire/EMS crews on their own audio channel: a priority tone for high-priority calls, a standard new-call tone otherwise.
Running fire and EMS separately¶
By default a community runs one combined Fire & EMS department that does both fire-ground and patient work. If your community runs them as distinct agencies, you can split them.
To split them: create an EMS department in Admin → Departments (choose EMS (separate) as the CAD surface). An EMS tile appears on the hub next to Fire & EMS, and medics go on duty there instead.
Nothing else needs configuring, and nothing about your existing Fire & EMS department changes. There is no community-wide switch to flip: you are "separate" simply because an EMS department exists, and deleting it puts you back.
What the separate EMS terminal carries of its own:
- Its own status set: available, enroute, staged, at scene, transporting, at hospital, out of service, seeded with the numbered codes the EMS skin reads out.
- Its own dispositions and out-of-service reasons: medical outcomes only, no fire-ground codes. Edit them in Admin → Dispatch & Records.
- Its own call types: medical types only. A combined department still sees both fire and medical.
- Its own reports: PCR, Medical Entry, and Refusal of Care. Fire / Medical Run stays with fire, and a combined department keeps all four.
- Its own roster, stations, callsigns, and MDT skin, set like any other department.
Dispatch stays one console
Dispatchers do not get a second screen. Medics appear as their own agency in the units panel with their own statuses and dispositions, and can be assigned like anyone else.
A medical 911 reaches whichever you have
Requests for medical help resolve to whichever fire/medical departments actually exist (the combined one, the separate EMS one, or both) so nothing is lost by splitting or by staying combined. The same is true of the ER:LC "Fire" team and in-game station alerts.
Call types¶
Fire and EMS call types (structure fire, medical, MVA, etc.) are configured per community in Admin → Call Types, each with a default priority and category.
Shared, multi-agency incidents
Fire/EMS and law enforcement can attach to the same call, so a multi-agency scene (for example a collision with injuries) is coordinated from one incident record shared with Dispatch.