Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security, must have seen the movie Minority Report too many times. The video below which been around for a couple of years teases how the lab is developing future work environments for the emergency management community called Precision Information Environments (or PIEs). PIEs will hopefully provide tailored access to information and decision support capabilities in a system that supports the multiple user roles, contexts, and phases of emergency management, planning, and response.
Do you think the windshield of a fire vehicle will ever be able to instantly transform into a huge computer monitor?
Thanks go out to Jim
Smart cards? Bar codes? Hell I know volunteer organizations that fly airplanes have been doing this for almost 10-12 yrs now….
Again….wih all that technology and money floating around the Federal land maaaaangement agencies this would have alll been accomplished with the money Congress has allocated them, the ability to be associated with ESF 4 requirements all require something just more than the Red Card should have already been dealt with if the USDA was recieving any FEMA type grants..
WOW with allllll those computer programs and the ability to “credential” at the LMA level sure shows a true ineptness for that money and the proof that this was all going to be done some timetable the last 5 or so years, obviously was some sort of snow job……
Yep
The generation of Androids, IPhones, Ipads and whatnot
Carry extry batteries for all that technology when you leave your knife and compass at home!!!
EVEN us pilots still carry Sectional maps with us…..errrrrr maybe not your airline and corporate types
But I bet the airtanker pilots here, being interviewed, are still carrying sectional maps as well as whatever tech they are carryin
AND yes to the the response juarin stated….is your eyes on the app or on the weather???
I like my iPhone and iPad as much as the next guy, but wildland fire is still suppressed by people on the ground using sharpened metal on wooden sticks …
I’m still waiting for my personal jetpack that Walter Cronkite said we’d all have by the year 2000 in those films they showed up at school in the 1970s.
Everyone’s quals were supposed to be loaded on smart cards 5 years ago….
I recall 15 years ago there was talk that we would each have a bar code and check in would be done with a scanner.
We got DOI smart cards abut 5 years ago. Cost $125 per person. The last and first time mine came out of the desk was for the every 3 year update.
There will be a lot of forms to fill out for a cracked windshield
Sure that tech would be nice, assuming it works. But frankly all the tech can be distracting. If your nose is stuck in your latest wildfire app are you watching the weather like you should? A map and compass can still get you a long way. We are still years away from where all the tech will be so intuitive that using it doesn’t require dividing your attention. Be advised all this is coming from a guy who still writes letters on occasion.
Map & Compass/Land Navigation are no longer a REQUIRED component of S-130 Basic Wildland Fire classes.
To answer your question, Bill
Give it time
While the DHS and EM community have spent ten years with all this gee whiz and ohhhhahhh stuff….
Ya think with all the computer programs that are in the USFS, USFWS, NPS, DOI and other affiliated Federal and State Land Management Agencies…..
That they would have all that sewed up by now inside of the 10 years that DHS has been around and that the average Type 6 engine WOULD have an MDT AND the ability of the windshield to be large computer monitor.
With the money spent they could have also had the equivalent of every HGU56P helmet or variants thereof, for AH64D and other US Army Aviators that EVERY GS5/6 ENGB and ENOP could saddle up with a helmet such as this, including the right eye reticle and HUD (Heads Up Display) and singlehandedly be on every fire and put them out before they got tooo large.
Thereby saving COSTLY 50+ page reports such as the NPS Reading / Lassen report previously.
Ohhhh God I ve spent oo much time watching this movie and reading the new Area 51 book that I thought this would ALLLLL be possible, by now, courtesy of the LMA’s!!!