ORLANDO, Fla. — The Orlando Fire Department (OFD) knows what it takes to get a 20 ton truck through downtown Orlando.

• New combined fire department and police department CAD system
• Changes to come for contacting 911 in the future
• State grant that would install devices that could potentially connect to phones or vehicles being worked on

Jamie Holton, an engineer for OFD, has been dealing with the area's challenges for the last eight years.

"The very nature of downtown is difficult because sometimes cars have nowhere to go," said Holton.

"The roads are narrow, a lot of pedestrian traffic, a lot of vehicular traffic and it really takes laser focus, as much as you can muster," he continued.

Spectrum News 13 visited OFD Station One to get an idea of how the fire department deals with these obstacles.

Some of the technology is familiar, like the OPTICOM System, which employs an emittor on a truck leaving the station that starts rotating local lights green.

However, the City's Fire Department is more excited about the future.

Starting in August, the Orlando Fire Department is getting ready to close the door on their old CAD system, which eventually could make the way they navigate traffic in difficult situations much more efficient.

That new system will combine the Fire Department and the Police Department's CAD system into one.

"All the information that fire captures, the police have an opportunity to utilize when they are responding to the same residence or same call." said Richard Wales, the interim Fire Chief for OFD.

Looking into the future, the way we dial or text 911 may also be changing.

"The new next generation eventually will have the ability to send photo or video, and those are important things for the rescuers as they are arriving that we can see this information ahead of time," said Wales.

Finally, the department also says they are working on a state grant that would install devices that could potentially connect to your phones or vehicles.

"As you're driving up towards where our units are working on the street, we'll send an alert to your cell phone or GPS to let you know as the driver that there is an emergency happening and to look out for my responders," Wales added.

Jamie Holton is excited for the changes, however he has a message for drivers in the current state of affairs.

"If you can safely move out of the way, we would much appreciate it, because we are responding to something that is very important," Holton said.