The Year AI Got Real for Fire Departments
If 2024 was the year the fire service started talking about artificial intelligence, 2026 is the year it started showing up on the apparatus floor. AI isn't a future concept for fire departments anymore. It's writing your grant applications. It's scheduling your shifts. It's helping your nozzle teams put out fires faster with less water. And it's doing it all right now.
Let's break down what's actually happening, separate hype from reality, and figure out what this means for your department.
The Company Leading the Charge
Start with HEN Technologies, because their trajectory tells the story of where fire service AI is headed. HEN raised $22 million in combined Series A funding and venture debt, positioning itself as the first company building what it calls an "operating system for fire defense."
The growth numbers are striking. HEN went from $200,000 in revenue in 2023 to over $5 million in 2025, and the company is projecting $20 million for 2026. That's a 100x revenue increase in three years. As TechCrunch reported, venture capital doesn't flow to fire service startups at this scale unless there's demonstrated product-market fit.
What HEN is actually building: an integrated platform that uses AI to handle incident reporting, pre-planning, code enforcement, and operational analytics. Think of it as a single dashboard that replaces the patchwork of disconnected software systems most departments currently juggle. The AI layer sits on top, identifying patterns, flagging anomalies, and automating routine tasks that currently consume officer time.
AI-Enabled Nozzles: The Headline Stat
Here's the number that gets people's attention: AI-enabled nozzle systems have demonstrated the ability to extinguish fires up to 3 times faster while using two-thirds less water.
How? The AI analyzes thermal imaging data in real time, adjusting flow rate, stream pattern, and targeting to optimize suppression. Instead of a firefighter manually adjusting a nozzle based on visual assessment and experience, the system processes thermal data faster than a human can perceive it and makes micro-adjustments continuously.
This doesn't replace the firefighter. Someone still has to position the nozzle, make tactical decisions about ventilation and exposure protection, and manage the overall fireground. But the AI makes the water application more efficient at the point of contact. Less water means less water damage. Faster knockdown means shorter exposure time for occupants and firefighters. It's a genuine performance improvement, not a gimmick.
Where Else AI Is Showing Up
The nozzle technology gets headlines, but AI is quietly embedding itself across virtually every operational area of the fire service. Here's what's actually deployed or in active pilots as of 2026:
Shift Scheduling and Staffing Optimization
AI-driven scheduling systems analyze historical call volume data, seasonal patterns, event calendars, and staffing availability to generate optimized shift schedules. This is particularly valuable for departments that struggle with minimum staffing—the system can predict when shortfalls are likely and recommend overtime assignments or callback adjustments before gaps develop.
For 911 dispatchers and duty officers managing daily staffing, this represents a significant reduction in administrative workload and a measurable improvement in coverage reliability.
Code Enforcement Image Analysis
Fire inspectors are using AI tools that analyze photographs of commercial occupancies to identify potential code violations. Upload a photo of a commercial kitchen, electrical panel, or exit corridor, and the system flags items that warrant closer inspection. It doesn't replace the inspector's judgment or authority, but it accelerates the review process and helps ensure consistency across inspections.
Drone Automation
AI-powered drones are being deployed for fireground reconnaissance, thermal mapping, and search operations. The AI handles flight path optimization, obstacle avoidance, and real-time thermal analysis. The operator sets objectives; the drone executes. Some systems can autonomously survey a structure fire perimeter and deliver a thermal exposure map to the incident commander's tablet within minutes of arrival.
Grant Writing Assistance
This might be the most immediately practical application for small and mid-size departments. AI writing tools trained on successful grant applications are helping departments draft SAFER, AFG, and state grant submissions. The AI can analyze an RFP, identify evaluation criteria, and generate draft narrative sections that align with scoring rubrics. Chiefs and grant writers still review and customize the output, but the first draft arrives in minutes instead of days.
Incident Reporting and Documentation
AI is streamlining NFIRS reporting and internal documentation. Voice-to-text systems capture officer narratives at the scene, and AI processes the raw input into structured report formats. Some systems cross-reference the narrative against dispatch data, CAD records, and mutual aid logs to flag inconsistencies or missing information before the report is finalized.
Pre-Incident Planning
AI systems are generating pre-incident plans by analyzing building data, occupancy records, construction type, hazmat storage reports, and historical incident data for specific addresses. When an engine company pulls up to a commercial structure, the AI-generated pre-plan on their MDT includes not just the static building data, but dynamic risk factors derived from recent inspection findings, code violation history, and similar occupancy fire patterns.
Apparatus Safety: Oshkosh CAMS
On the apparatus side, Oshkosh's Command Awareness and Mitigation System (CAMS) uses a combination of radar, AI, and computer vision to provide collision avoidance, pedestrian detection, and situational awareness for fire apparatus operators. Given that apparatus accidents remain a leading cause of firefighter line-of-duty injury and death, this technology has direct life-safety implications.
CAMS doesn't take control of the apparatus. It provides the driver/operator with enhanced awareness—blind spot monitoring, proximity alerts, pedestrian tracking—that supplements human perception, especially during emergency response when cognitive load is highest.
Fire Station Site Selection
Here's an application that affects fire chiefs and city planners directly: AI is being used to optimize fire station placement. By analyzing call volume data, geographic coverage patterns, traffic models, population growth projections, and response time requirements, AI tools can identify the optimal location for new stations or recommend whether existing stations should be relocated.
For communities making multi-million-dollar capital decisions about station construction, having data-driven site analysis reduces the risk of political siting decisions that don't align with actual coverage needs.
The NIST Framework
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has published guidance on AI in fire safety equipment, addressing validation, testing, and performance requirements for AI systems used in life-safety applications. This is important groundwork. As AI becomes embedded in suppression systems, detection equipment, and operational software, having standards for how these systems are validated prevents a Wild West scenario where untested algorithms make life-safety decisions.
The NIST guidance doesn't mandate specific technologies. It establishes a framework for evaluating whether an AI system performs reliably enough for fire service deployment. Departments evaluating AI products should ask vendors whether their systems have been developed with reference to NIST guidelines.
The Industry-Wide Shift
According to Firehouse's 2026 fire service technology trends report, nearly every fire service software company is now leveraging AI in some capacity. Records management systems, CAD platforms, training management software, fleet maintenance tools—AI features are being added across the board.
This doesn't mean every AI feature is equally mature or useful. Some are genuine operational improvements. Others are marketing labels applied to basic automation. The fire service needs to be discerning consumers. Ask for performance data. Ask for reference departments. Ask what the AI actually does versus what the sales deck claims.
What This Means for Your Department
Here's the practical takeaway for department leaders:
- AI is not optional. The technology is being integrated into the tools you already use. Understanding what it does and how it works is now a core competency for fire officers.
- Start with pain points. Don't adopt AI for its own sake. Identify your department's most time-consuming administrative tasks—scheduling, reporting, grant writing, pre-planning—and evaluate AI tools that address those specific problems.
- Budget for it. AI-enabled tools generally carry higher licensing costs than their traditional counterparts. Build these costs into your operating budget and explore grant funding for technology upgrades.
- Train your people. AI tools are only as effective as the people using them. Invest in training that helps your officers and firefighters understand what AI does, what it doesn't do, and how to evaluate its output critically.
- Protect your data. AI systems require data to function. Understand what data you're sharing with vendors, how it's stored, and who has access. Data governance isn't optional.
The Human Element
As CTIF's analysis of AI in firefighting frames the question: is this technology a powerful ally or a risky crutch? Let me be clear about something: AI is not replacing firefighters. It's not replacing dispatchers. It's not replacing fire officers. What it's doing is automating routine tasks, enhancing human decision-making with better data, and improving the efficiency of resource-limited departments.
The firefighter who makes the go/no-go decision at a burning structure. The dispatcher who hears the panic in a caller's voice and knows to upgrade the response. The chief who reads a scene and adjusts the strategy. Those are human judgments that AI supports but does not replace.
The fire service has always adapted to new technology—from horse-drawn steamers to diesel apparatus, from paper maps to GPS, from radio to digital communications. As Fire Engineering notes, AI is the next evolution. The departments that embrace it thoughtfully will deliver better service. The ones that ignore it will fall behind.
For more on how technology is changing fire service careers, check out our blog or explore the full range of fire service career paths to see where the opportunities are heading.