Austin Fire using high-tech mapping to help prevent wildfire disasters

AUSTIN, Texas – As devastating wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, the Austin Fire Department is taking some proactive measures to prepare for the possibility of a similar catastrophe striking closer to home. 

Multiple lives lost, immeasurable destruction, and a community in crisis as the southern California wildfires continue to wreak havoc.

For Austin Fire Department’s Senior Geospatial Analyst Braniff Davis, it’s not a matter of if, but when a devastating wildfire breaks out in the area.

To help stay prepared for a wildfire, the agency uses high-tech mapping from a company called Esri.

What they’re saying:

“We use GIS or geographic information spatial information in order to help prepare the Austin Fire Department for fighting wildfires,” Davis said.

The city of Austin is using their high-tech mapping to improve fire prevention, response and damage assessment.

“It’s a great example of a local government addressing the risk in their community and either preventing or mitigating the risk and being able to respond to it,” Esri’s Director of Fire, Rescue and EMS Mike Cox said.

Big picture view:

Here’s how it works. It all starts with understanding risk, understanding the topography and who is being impacted by the incidents.

“As an example, I can do an analysis in GI and understand how many homes have disabilities within a certain planning zone or how many homes don’t have vehicles based on, you know, with concerns for evacuation, you know, who can self-evacuate and who can’t. So, these kind of data sets are available to these responders, to these agencies to be able to do this kind of planning,” Cox said.

Then, it’s about planning the response through geographic information technology.

First responders can now track firefighter locations, coordinate large-scale search and rescue efforts, and even monitor the movement of responding helicopters in real-time.

“What you’re seeing there is obviously a map with structural footprints. You see those tracks that are laid by the responders as they move through an area, and they’re dropping symbology around damage assessment of homes or evacuations. It’s incredibly important in a command post or an emergency operations center to be able to deploy resources efficiently and put people where they need to be to have the most impact and also to keep our responders out of hazardous areas,” Cox said.

Finally comes the recovery phase.

Esri mapping can identify where the damaged structures are post-fire to help begin the rebuild process.

“The recovery process at a federal level as they start tracking these damage assessments and can start funneling the funding to the right agencies and right people that need the help the most based on this data collection,” said Cox.

Local perspective:

For Davis, he says, while in its early stages, these tools are being used city wide by Austin Fire, with the hope for all other first responding agencies to utilize them in the future.

In the meantime, he says all AFD firefighters are being trained on how to use the situational awareness platform ahead of the next wildfire. 

The goal, he says, is to get resources out to a fire as soon as it happens. 

“Once we can get everybody all their data into this platform, then it just becomes a seamless one-stop shop for every bit of information you need for an emergency situation,” Davis said.

Dig deeper:

More information on Austin’s Wildfire Hub can be found here: Wildfire

More on Esri: GIS Software for Mapping and Spatial Analytics | Esri