The Coweta County Commission on May 10 approved a $448,000 low bid for the purchase for 15 alert systems for the county’s fire stations. The units will reduce emergency response times by firefighters and paramedics.

The unanimous vote by commissioners approved the purchase of 15 FIRST-IN fire station alert systems from WestNet, Inc. The low bid totaled $448,216.

The system will work by automatically alerting a fire station through the dispatch center rather than having fire stations manually alerted as is currently the case.

The fully-automated text-to-speech function announces units assigned to the call, the nature of the emergency, the incident address and any additional call information.

The system communicates the pre-announcement and dispatch information through alerting modules producing both an audible and visual notification of the alert produced through the station’s existing public address system.

The system will reduce critical firefighter and paramedic response times.

The high bid was nearly $553,000.

Funding for the system will come from the Coweta County Fire Bond and the county’s special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST).