Purpose – The purpose of this study is to add to the existing body of knowledge and increase the understanding of the contribution of current smart emergency applications to the facility manager with the focus on required information during building fire emergency response operations. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews with different safety professionals from Dutch universities are used to identify their role during a fire incident, an acceptable level of fire cause, necessary information items and, their viewpoint on the use of smart emergency applications. The results are translated to a multi-criteria analysis in which different smart emergency applications are evaluated according to a variety of information items. Main finding – This study reveals that not all required information is integrated into the current smart emergency apps. In fact, each smart emergency apps have a unique information provision which can be useful during a specific phase of a building fire emergency operation. In addition, the findings show that the use of smart emergency apps is partially supported by the participants of the interviews. Research limitations/implications – This study was confined to universities in The Netherlands and the semi-structured interviews have limited population size. A larger population with the focus on international universities would have allowed for more important data, but the findings do provide valuable and essential insight into the contribution of smart emergency apps to the facility managers. Practical implications – The empirical results provide guidance to the emergency and facility managers to opt for the smart emergency app(s) according to their required information and, give valuable insight to app developers and researchers for further improvement and development of the emergency apps. Originality/value – Most studies focus on the benefits and technical aspects of the smart emergency app. This research provides readers with more insight into the extent of the required information on current smart emergency apps in favor of the facility manager who needs to perform during a building fire emergency operation