Situational awareness is a much-discussed but poorly executed concept. Entries on Wikipedia define it as “knowing what is going on so you can figure out what to do” or “what you need to know to not be surprised.” Intuitively, it is the ability to give answers to what is happening, why it is happening, what might happen next and what can be done about it. The purpose of situational awareness is to enable rapid, appropriate decisions and effective actions, and it is considered essential for those who are responsible for being in control of complex, dynamic systems and high-risk situations.

Firefighters and other public safety personnel are taught to appreciate that situational awareness is the lifeblood of incident management, command and control, and effective response operations. Departments have invested in better radio systems, mobile sensors, and computer-aided dispatch and geographic information system capabilities. Despite these investments, less than optimal decisions still are made, and the consequences can be deadly. Lack of situational awareness or inadequate situational awareness are consistently identified as a primary factor in public safety accidents attributed to human error.

Acquiring, maintaining and sharing situational awareness during emergency operations can be difficult, consume much time and resources, and be fraught with errors. Today's incident responders, commanders and managers rely on hard-copy map books, isolated and disparate data systems, and voice communications to acquire, maintain and share situational awareness. Even with the help of these tools, the right information doesn't get to the right people at the right time.

While the reality may seem bleak, there is hope. A new situational awareness is possible for today's fire departments and other public safety agencies. This capability stands on the shoulders of a vast amount of research and development completed over the past 10 years for combat pilots, air traffic controllers, military commanders and the like. Internet-age technologies and new network-centric thinking are used to reinvent the traditional approach to command and control. This new situational awareness brings the real-time monitoring and tactical operations management to local fire stations, dispatch centers or emergency operations centers.

A new field-proven situational awareness capability is available that embodies the following critical functions packaged in a cost-effective system solution that can be readily deployed:

• System of systems platform.
• Real-time information flows.
• Geospatial common operational picture.
• Command center and mobile clients.
• Collaborative environment.

Public safety agencies have made significant investments in CAD system, records-management systems, GIS, crisis information management, and facility preplan drawing and management systems. These are stand-alone systems and are incapable of easily sharing data with other programs. Their proliferation has created a series of data silos requiring fire service command or other response personnel to perform “swivel chair” integration, rolling back and forth between the user interfaces of several different systems or books to build a composite picture of the situation in their minds.

The emergence of Internet standards for Web services and data integration now makes it possible to weave these systems together by providing the connections and data translations necessary to make each system's data understandable to the others. This establishes a true information-sharing environment in which various data sources can be brought together and woven into valuable information relevant to the incident being responded to. New capabilities such as video surveillance, fixed or mobile sensors, and plume modeling can be integrated easily in the future. Another benefit is that public safety personnel can focus on being decision-makers and not data-entry clerks.

Public safety agencies work in a dynamic, complex and high-risk environment that demands current and relevant situational awareness. Time is of the essence when faced with saving lives, property and the environment. There is no time to copy and send files, pictures, or diagrams. The best case is to have all relevant information updated in real time to keep pace with the unfolding incident or situation. Responders, incident commanders and emergency managers need to be able to view the situation and collaborate in real time to communicate what is happening at present.

With the systems tied together and the information flowing in real time, what is needed next is to fuse the information together and present it in a visualization environment that can be quickly understood and manipulated. The fire service and other public safety and emergency management entities already operate in a geospatial environment: How do I get there? Where is the incident? Where is the fire? Where is the bad guy going? What and where are the exposures to this fire? Where is my water supply? Where are my resources? How does our coverage look for any other emergencies? Incident response organizations are used to dealing with maps and locations, and thus a geospatial picture makes a lot of sense as the primary visualization mechanism for incident data.

With a map-based operating picture that is updated in real time, the information presented on that map can be adapted as appropriate to the roles and responsibilities of the individual responders. This will facilitate rapid comprehension and more effective decision-making for all disciplines that might be required.

Here are examples of users and their needs:

Incident responder

This role is an information consumer with minimal technology skills, one to 12 minutes in front of the system, and minimal interaction with the system. This user needs to quickly acquire situational awareness and provide good decision support for implementing initial actions.

Incident commander

Initially this user is an information consumer like the first responder with little time to interact and minimal technology skills. Once on scene, this user has more time to interact with the system. The incident commander needs to support communication, command and control, and collaboration with all levels of emergency operations and emergency management to communicate the situation status, the incident action plan and resource needs.

Emergency manager

This user initially is an information consumer like the first responder with little time to interact. Once at the EOC, this user has more time to interact with the system. The emergency manager is concerned with the situational awareness and resource needs of the incident and the jurisdiction and needs to communicate and collaborate with the incident commander and all levels of emergency management to provide incident, jurisdictional and multiagency coordination and support.

Emergency management analyst

This user is interactive with the system; has developed technology skills; and provides analysis, information, context, and support to emergency managers.

Governmental executive

This user is an information consumer with minimal technology skills.

The general public, public-information officer, community notification

These users are information consumers with no technology skills and little to no interaction with the system.

With the real-time geospatial common operational picture complete, fire departments need to share that picture with all levels of incident management, user groups and especially those at the incident scene. This requires the availability of both desktop and mobile client modules that are capable of delivering the real-time GSCOP. It is preferable that the desktop and mobile versions present a consistent user interface to the end user, eliminating the need to train and understand two different user interfaces.

Each participant in a response, whether it is the responder in the field, the incident commander or the emergency manager in the EOC, contributes to the common operational picture. This requires a collaborative, map-based interaction. As an incident scales up and requires more resources, users should be able to quickly join the team by logging in via a Web browser and instantly catching up on the situation and contributing to the solution.

Regardless of where users are, they are helping to create an accurate and dynamic picture of what is happening, what is needed, and how the department is doing. Who knows better what is flooded than the firefighter whose boots are wet? Who knows which homes have been damaged in the hurricane better than the personnel in the field? Is this information important to the emergency managers in the EOC? Of course. How soon would they like to have it? What about evacuation routes that have been provided to the public? Do responders need to know where these are? At the touch of a screen, we would all know precisely where staging is located, or where the open flank of a vegetation fire is, or where the hazmat plume is. It would be much easier would it be to communicate and create understanding if responders had the same picture at the same time.

Technology has evolved to the point where a standards-based, collaborative, real-time common operational picture can be shared among responders, incident commanders and all levels of emergency management. From the local incident to the multiagency response, all responders can have situational awareness and communicate vital information. What a department's common operational picture and situational awareness look like should be shaped by a needs assessment of the organizational goals and objectives as well as the users' roles and responsibilities. They should weave together the legacy systems, connecting the data silos into a powerful decision support and emergency management tool.

The National Response Framework and the National Incident Management System have called out the need for acquiring, maintaining, and sharing situational awareness. Public safety responders deal with dynamic, complex and high-risk situations. Technology has made it possible to better define and execute situational awareness.

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Michael St. John is a recently retired operations division chief from the Livermore-Pleasanton (Calif.) Fire Department. During his more than 30 years of service, he was involved in the hazmat team, department training and public safety technology. His technology responsibilities included communications and radio systems, leading the development of a citywide Geographic Information System, emergency operations resource deployment analysis, implementation of a regional GIS data server, and the development of tactical emergency management software. St. John currently is the director of public safety solutions for SYS Technologies.