It's always been important for a firefighter to have a good sense of the lay of the land — or of the inside of a building. Firefighters used to have to carry the data associated with their primary service area in their minds, memorizing address breaks for the different cross streets and hydrant locations during their first few years in a new station. This information supported firefighters' decision-making and emergency response.

But given the complex nature of communities today, there's too much data to commit to memory, and it's too cumbersome and slow to keep paper books updated in all field units. Fortunately, technology is rapidly evolving, and the ability to put current geospatial information such as maps, demographic data and building plans into the hands of field personnel is at a level way beyond the map book.

GIS databases and aerial maps usually are available from the community planning or permitting offices, the tax assessor, and public and private utilities. GIS captures information on new streets, developments, commercial buildings, slope modifications and wildland-urban interface areas — conditions that evolve in months, not decades. This rich data is critical to today's firefighters in ways that weren't envisioned even five years ago.

Predictive services

Risk analysis identifies high life-hazard occupancies, environmental threats from manufacturing, hazmat facilities, large fire hazards that would overwhelm the resources available, and large revenue generators or employers that could devastate the economy of a community if lost. Plotting these risks in a GIS program and rating them provides the foundational risk layer to evaluate the ability to deliver service. GIS information also allows you to plan the location of fire stations and the distribution of equipment types to mitigate risk.

Other agencies have other data to assist in the placement of apparatus and staffing commensurate to community needs:

Planning or community development offices will have information on permitted and proposed dwellings, height and size of dwellings, parcel maps, and population density. These offices also are likely a wealth of terrain and fire fuel information associated with wildland-urban interface areas.

Public works office will have the locations of fire hydrants, storm drains, sewer locations, streets and routes of private access. In addition, they may have utility and community infrastructure data about restricted-access or flood-prone areas or locations that may become isolated during natural disasters.

Parks and recreation agencies will have data for the wildland-urban interface, including fuels and vegetation information and maps of trails and remote-access areas. GIS data that reflects open spaces with wildfire potential can help fire and other public agencies to prevent a fire from occurring, or at least create conditions that would slow the spread of a fire.

Weather services will catalog the history of prevailing winds and seasonal warnings.

Utilities companies will have information on electrical, gas and water services.

Industrial companies will have data on gasoline, jet fuel, oil or chemical pipelines.

This information can be modeled using GIS analytical tools to predict response time and resource delivery. The fire agency then can provide community managers with a reasonable prediction of expected performance improvement or reduction so that all parties can make informed decisions. This analysis also allows the fire agency to provide input to local planning and permitting agencies to prevent adverse consequences.

In addition, with GIS data fire agencies can establish a routine fire inspection program that can reduce both the threat of fire and the potential risk to firefighters' safety.

Prevention & response

Regardless of the nature of the emergency, time is of the essence. Readily available, up-to-date street data and tactical reference plans can reduce decision time.

GIS information on a building (access points, fire hydrants, utility controls, emergency exits, sprinkler system valves and hazards) and surrounding area can be “digested” by firefighters en route, giving them time to develop real-time situational awareness and allowing them to take quick and direct action once on scene. Further, this information can be shared with other response units, preparing them to provide effective support. For instance, police also may respond to fire calls to provide crowd control and establish event perimeters. If on-scene firefighters don't know where police and perimeters are, all parties are at risk.

This effectiveness can be extended to interagency preplanning, as well. For example, fire departments routinely perform inspections of multi-family dwellings and commercial buildings. Most likely, the department has access to building plans and was inside a building of interest within the past year. Should the local law enforcement agency wish to make a preemptive strike or need to prepare for surveillance, the fire agency could be a valuable resource of relevant GIS information and first-hand knowledge.

An example of the value of this GIS information in interagency cooperation is the emergency response to a September 2003 shooting at a Spokane, Wash., high school. Responders used its statewide crisis management system, which provides first responders with instant access to more than 300 site-specific data points, including tactical plans, floor plans, satellite and GIS imagery, interior and exterior photos, staging areas, hazmat quantities and locations, utility shut-offs, and evacuation routes. During the incident, the shooter was tracked and disarmed within 12 minutes.

Future potential

Technology for the fire professional has evolved dramatically from the days of horse-drawn carriages and bucket brigades to today's sophisticated pumpers, ladder equipment and command vehicles. GIS can provide real-time, detailed, site-specific tactical reference material, including surrounding terrain, building plans, hazmat locations or other circumstances that affect emergency response — and the full potential of GIS is yet to be realized.

Today's rugged laptops and handheld devices can and do perform the GIS information tasks that firefighters need to save lives The key to unlocking the power of GIS for public safety is the availability of ubiquitous high-speed wireless data networks.

There are two additional GIS data systems that could be beneficial to firefighter efficiency and health. The first is automated vehicle location systems, which can be incorporated into each agencies' operational system. Ideally it should include the real-time location of every fire, police and medic vehicle within a jurisdiction. This would allow responders to know what other fire vehicles have been assigned to their incident and where they are in respect to the incident location.

The second GIS technology breakthrough is very close but not quite available: gps location for each individual firefighter. Ideally this would be a three-dimensional system that locates and tracks firefighters at various floors within a building. This information will surely save lives and give the incident commander a greater degree of insight, knowing exactly where all of his or her firefighter assets are deployed.

The fire agency today isn't that of your father's. Radio has replaced the “speaking trumpet,” and state-of-the-art pumpers and engines have replaced horse-drawn hand pumps and bucket brigades. With the advent of today's rich geospatial information systems, the firefighter can be better informed than ever before to tackle any job responsively, effectively and deliberately. The result is a safer community for all.

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Michael St. John is a recently retired operations division chief from the Livermore-Pleasanton (Calif.) Fire Department. He was involved in the development of a citywide Geographic Information System, emergency operations resource deployment analysis, regional GIS data server, and tactical emergency management software. St. John currently is the director of Public Safety Solutions for SYS Technologies and can reached by at mstjohn@systechnologies.com.