Darkhorse Emergency

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Darkhorse Emergency Darkhorse Emergency offers proven, evidence-based solutions to the critical issues faced by emergenc Our focus is to improve your response performance.

We help you make intelligent, intuitive, data driven decisions. Our tools are designed from the ground up for emergency services professionals. They incorporate advanced analytics and intuitive visualizations to support better decision-making. Our consulting engagements are customized to your service, use your data, and provide actionable recommendations focused on your challenges and tailored to your needs. Our goal is to raise the level of decision-making throughout the industry. Our case studies, articles, and training materials help you transition your culture to one that combines evidence with experience.

Where should your next fire service investment go?Craig Hiltz and Lara Brown are heading to the CalChiefs Annual Confere...
10/20/2026

Where should your next fire service investment go?

Craig Hiltz and Lara Brown are heading to the CalChiefs Annual Conference, October 27–29 in Universal City.

As California's fire leaders come together, we're ready to talk about the decisions behind operational readiness: station locations, deployment, and community risk. Darkhorse helps turn response and risk data into a clear case for where resources can make the greatest difference.

Meet Craig and Lara at booths 107 & 109 during exhibit hours, October 27–28. Bring the planning question your department is working through.

Your next fire service investment needs a clear data-defensible case: one you can explain to council and your community....
10/13/2026

Your next fire service investment needs a clear data-defensible case: one you can explain to council and your community.

Darkhorse Emergency is heading to ICMA 2026 to talk with city managers, CAOs and other industry professionals about making those decisions with confidence.

From station locations and staffing to community risk, we help you understand your options, weigh the tradeoffs, and connect spending to service levels.

Visit us at Booth #1632. Bring your toughest fire service planning question, and let’s talk about the evidence you need to move forward.

📍 Long Beach, California
📅 ICMA Annual Conference | October 17–21, 2026

10/01/2026

For departments with mutual aid partners, our Mutual Aid card in Darkhorse Response turns your mutual aid data into a measurable account of dependence, contribution, and risk.

Total aid given, total aid received, and your net balance, all at a glance. Then broken down agency by agency, so you can see exactly who you partner with most, and what those relationships looks like.

Why we built this:

- A rising volume of aid received can signal that your own resources aren't keeping pace with demand, whether that's staffing, apparatus, or coverage gaps.

- Aid given tells the other side of the story. It shows how often your crews are committed elsewhere, while your home coverage may be stretched thin.

- And your net balance shows whether your agreements are fair and sustainable over time.

That's powerful evidence for budget requests, cost recovery, and regional planning conversations.

If you'd like to see this for your department, visit our page below and fill out the form: https://hubs.la/Q04yZpCl0

Will your CRA/SOC still be relevant when the people, priorities and budget change?Use these six questions from our recen...
09/22/2026

Will your CRA/SOC still be relevant when the people, priorities and budget change?

Use these six questions from our recent webinar with CPSE to test the process:

1. Can every score be traced to data or documented judgment?
2. Is the method clear enough to rerun with consistent results?
3. Can the work continue without one person’s tools, access or knowledge?
4. Can you refresh it each year without starting over?
5. Can you explain the methodology clearly to a peer team?
6. Does it change real decisions—and do you check performance between reporting deadlines?

Choose a place for improvement and start there. Document a definition. Fix access to a data source. Bring one risk or performance chart into an existing meeting and ask what changed.

Those habits help a department carry its risk strategy through turnover and future cycles. They’re also central to how we think about a living CRA and SOC at Darkhorse.

Watch the full webinar replay to explore the approach: https://hubs.la/Q04xQhGr0

As your CRA/SOC goes through different hands, teams, departments and leaders, how can you ensure that is remains relevan...
09/18/2026

As your CRA/SOC goes through different hands, teams, departments and leaders, how can you ensure that is remains relevant and useful?

Someone receiving the strategy would need more than the final tables. They would need to know where the data came from, how the scores were calculated, which judgments shaped the result, and how to update it.

That’s the challenge we explored in our recent webinar, From Accreditation Project to Accreditation Infrastructure.

A durable Community Risk Assessment and Standards of Cover (CRA/SOC) gives the next person a clear way to continue the work:

• Traceable sources and documented methods.
• Shared access and repeatable updates.
• A regular place in staffing, deployment and prevention decisions.

Darkhorse brings risk analysis and response performance together to help departments make that work part of everyday planning—through leadership changes and the next accreditation cycle.

Watch the full webinar: https://hubs.ly/Q04xQk3R0

09/16/2026

If you could place your stations anywhere, starting from a blank map, where would they go?

Greenfield Optimization in Darkhorse Response models the ideal station locations across your entire city as if none existed yet, then puts that layout next to the one you have.

It shows where coverage gaps exist, whether your current stations are optimally positioned, and where future investment would move the needle most.

Useful ahead of station rebuilds, new station planning, or any budget conversation with municipal leaders.

See yours: https://hubs.la/Q04xHMGS0

Darkhorse Emergency is now an official NERIS Integration Partner.With NERIS live as the national standard for fire and e...
07/13/2026

Darkhorse Emergency is now an official NERIS Integration Partner.

With NERIS live as the national standard for fire and emergency data, being an official partner means we can pull your department's NERIS data directly into our tools.

For the departments we work with, that's the analytics layer on top of the data you're already reporting. Your risk assessments, station planning, and standards of cover work draw from the same standardized national dataset, no exports, no reformatting, no stitching files together by hand.

If your department is building its analytics on top of NERIS, we're ready to help.

07/10/2026

How is your fire department's performance trending?

It's the question behind every good decision a department makes, and it's hard to answer without identifying trends across your stations, shifts and calls.

HQ, part of Darkhorse Response, is built to answer those questions.

Switch between daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views and scroll back through time to watch your trends move. Every card shows change from the last period, so you can see what's improving and what's slipping at a glance, then click in for the detail by station, shift, or incident type.

Make a change, then watch the next month's numbers tell you whether it worked.

Our work is focused on helping departments build a culture of steady improvement; one informed adjustment at a time.

Late last year, NFPA consolidated four standards (1201, 1710, 1720, and 1730) into one reference for fire department org...
06/30/2026

Late last year, NFPA consolidated four standards (1201, 1710, 1720, and 1730) into one reference for fire department organization and deployment.

Most of the benchmarks you track every day carry forward.

But a handful of changes affect staffing, standards of cover, and how you report performance.

Join us for a practical, 60-minute read on what changed and what it means for your department.

We cover updated ERF targets, the new Dense Urban tier, and a redefined Total Response Time. We also cover Unit Reliability, now a required annual metric, plus what 1750 means for volunteer and combination departments.

Built for chiefs, planners, and accreditation managers who want clarity on the new standard.

We'll leave time for questions at the end.

Register here: https://hubs.la/Q04n7YH60

Behind every staffing decision is a community counting on a fast response. When the data is clear, the case makes itself...
06/26/2026

Behind every staffing decision is a community counting on a fast response. When the data is clear, the case makes itself.

We are proud that our analysis helped Chief Fry make the case for 100 new firefighters, and prouder still of the work her team does every day to keep their community safe.

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10507 Saskatchewan Drive NW
Edmonton, AB
T6E4S1

Telephone

1-800-261-1832

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