Not sure if it's used in the states, but where I life the radio's are encrypted, but the pagers are open. If you know how to read the pager messages you should know a lot about the incident and since you can see them on your computer screen you can also see the older messages, giving you a nice overview. You can also search by location and rescue service.

I know a lot of proffesionals grab there computers and have a look there pager messages there, since there are many open websites which will also automatically point the location on google maps. Also opening the link on you browser is quicker dan browsing on the pagers.