June 4, 2025 1 min read
Southern Marin Fire Protection District Elevates Operational Readiness with Vector’s Suite
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The Southern Marin Fire Protection District covers several communities across more than 25 square miles just north of San Francisco in California. With over 100 members and five stations, the district responds to about 10,000 calls per year.
“We’ve been with Vector Solutions for a little over 20-25 years, and our organization looked much different 20-25 years ago,” shared Deputy Chief Matt Barnes. “We were way smaller, and Vector has grown with us.”
Southern Marin provides its communities with a wide variety of emergency services. “Our call diversity is pretty great. We have water rescue, structure fire, vegetation fire, EMS, and vehicle accidents,” Barnes explained.
To keep operations running smoothly, the district relies on Vector Solutions’ suite of powerful operational readiness solutions to ensure its crews are trained and prepared to answer the call safely, effectively, and in compliance.
Seamless Training Management Simplifies ISO Compliance
For a department with many moving parts and increasing complexities, effective training tracking is no easy feat. “One of the things that we benefit from with the use of TargetSolutions is we can track all our training and make sure all our crews are in compliance,” Barnes reported. For Southern Marin, meeting ISO’s training benchmarks is not just a departmental goal but a community priority.
By leveraging TargetSolutions’ customizable and detailed credentials, the district can easily streamline tracking training to earn every point available.
“For the technology piece, ISO is really important to our communities. And so, we use Vector Solutions to track all our compliance hours, so we can get the highest percentage on our ISO rating,” shared Barnes.
Streamlined Shift Scheduling for a Dispersed District
When it came to staffing their sprawling, diverse agency, the district turned to Vector Scheduling to boost shift scheduling efficiencies. “We want to make sure our people are in the right place, on the right apparatus,” Barnes confirmed.
The Vector Scheduling mobile app for iOS and Android empowers the district’s dispersed crews to stay up to date on the schedule in real time and request changes on the fly.
“We’re a mobile workforce today. People use their phones more than ever, or their iPads, so they can see where they’re working, when they’re working, and how many hours or their eligibility for overtime,” Barnes described.
Modernized Checks Improve Efficiencies
Before using Vector Check It, the district used a paper-based inspection tracking and asset management system. “It was very clunky,” Barnes shared. “Our personnel had to check off every day their equipment checks and apparatus inventories.”
After moving to Vector Check It, crews utilize the intuitive mobile app to quickly complete checks from any device. “We use the same iPad that’s on the engine. They go through their checks on a simple platform,” described Barnes. “It minimizes the administrative work as well as the record keeping and has made it way more efficient for us.”
Agile Suite Purpose-Built for the Fire Service
Vector’s unique enterprise capabilities allow the district to tailor its training management approach to meet its evolving needs. “As we’ve merged with other agencies, we’ve been able to merge accounts into one and not lose any information or any data, which has been super important from a training officer standpoint,” shared Barnes.
Barnes highlighted the value of providing a seamless experience across software tools their members use regularly, stating, “It allows our firefighters to stay on the same platform and get very used to the landing page. It allows efficiency in our operations. It allows familiarity for our people.”
“We advocate and are ambassadors for the Vector suite of applications because we know it works,” Barnes concluded on sharing the value Vector Solutions has brought to the district.
Request a demo to discover how Vector Solutions can elevate training and operational management in your department.
