A very interesting panel discussion titled “The Power of Real-Time Data for Firefighting” occurred at a conference organized by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) — a nonprofit, educational organization supporting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft.
The three primary speakers during the panel were Kate Dargan, co-founder and chief strategist of the firefighting-analytics firm Intterra Group; James Reilly, Director of U.S. Geological Survey; and Jeff Johnson, CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association.
They discussed some tools that are slowly beginning to appear in the hands of wildland firefighters and what is being worked on that could show up in the field soon that will enhance their situational awareness. They talked about real time fire perimeters that could be displayed on mobile devices, tracking firefighting resources, and high-resolution LIDAR mapping of the entire United States — right along the lines of what we have called the Holy Grail of Wildland Firefighting.
The video below begins with introductions of the speakers and is followed by a description of the Camp Fire that burned through Paradise, California. If you’re already familiar with that incident, you can skip ahead to 8:00 where Kate Dargan begins her excellent presentation. She became a firefighter at the age of 18 and worked her way up to the post of California State Fire Marshall and later co-founded the Intterra Group.
Here is a sample from her remarks where she described her vision of real time fire intelligence:
We need a persistent fire perimeter. I need to know where the fire is at all times. I need to know where I am against that fire perimeter. I need to know where my forces next to me are. I need to know that at a minimum of one square meter resolution. And I need to know that what is collected and served to me on my mobile device is no more than two minutes old. I need to see that in a shape file so I can put other data with it. That’s what real time means to me…That’s the bulls eye we should be aiming at.
Below is a screengrab image from the video.
