Thanks to a new biometric punch clock, when a West Hamilton Beach firefighter reports to duty, his fingerprint signs him in.

“It's as simple as putting your finger on the button and then, I believe, it's like one second and you're signed in,” said deputy fire Chief Richie Farino Jr. “You go about your firehouse business.”

The punch clock was made by a company called Sense Technologies (www.senseme.com). What makes it different from standard punch clocks, other than the fingerprint scanner, is that the chief, no matter where he is, can find out exactly who is at the firehouse.

The logs can be accessed online with a computer or wireless device, which is especially useful at the West Hamilton Beach, Queens firehouse (www.whbfd.org), one of only ten volunteer units of the FDNY. Firefighters there have regular jobs and show up when they can, which makes mobilizing for huge emergencies like September 11 especially difficult.

“It was kind of hard to get in touch with everybody,” said fire Chief John Velotti. “The phones were down, the radios were running low on batteries. So if we would've had access to a computer we could've gotten on the computer, seen who was at the firehouse and dispatched them to where we needed them.

“It was just chaos and now our minds are at ease,” he said. “Now, at any given time we can get into a computer and find out who's here no matter where we are.”

Firefighters say the clock not only helps with accountability during an emergency, it also helps save some time.

“On September 11, there were a lot of things we had to prepare for while we were turning out to the Trade Center,” Farino said. “Having the 25 members we do have in the department running up and down the stairs to sign in and log their hours, if we had this September 11, they could've simply run upstairs, punched in on the clock then got right down to the duties they needed to do.”

The firehouse says the next step they're pushing for is a portable system so that firefighters could punch in at a disaster site. That way every chief would know exactly where they are at any moment, from anywhere.

--Adam Balkin