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Tom Patterson
Some of the latest spatial
technology was put to use
in the search operations
after the 2009 Victorian
bush fires. Tom Patterson
from ESRI (Environmental
Systems Research
Institute, USA) joined
Steve Forbes, Manager of
Risk Management and GIS
for the ACT Emergency
Services Agency at the
conference to explain
the startling impact new
spatial technology is likely
to have on the future of
fire management. Steve
Forbes spoke to the Bush
Fire Bulletin after their
presentation.
What is spatial technology?
Everyone uses maps. All of
our fire services use maps
and we have a lot of tools at a
local level. Now we are trying
to get people to embrace the
current and future technologies
in spatial technology. Tom is
travelling around the world trying
to showcase the really big uses
of spatial technologies in major
disasters around the world.
We saw it here in Australia in
the aftermath of Victorian bush
fires. What policing did for
Disaster Victim Identification
and the evidence gathering for
the Coroner was new ground
in spatial technology. A lot of
these new systems that were
established in the days after
Black Saturday were established
by spatial volunteers.
Something quite new happened
down in Victoria didn’t it?
Yes that’s right for us. We deployed
eight volunteers every day over
43 days. A total of 53 people were
deployed to assist Victoria Police.
They were all spatial professionals
and all worked as volunteers. It is
my understanding that is probably
the biggest deployment of spatial
volunteers in any disaster in
Australia.
After the 2003 fires in the ACT we
saw that the adoption of spatial
technologies could have been a
little better. We also realised that
Canberra has a huge concentration
of spatial professionals because
of its proximity to Federal
government departments. So we
have leveraged off that. We asked
them to volunteer to help us make
spatial technologies available to
fire and emergency crews.
We’ve got over 60 volunteers
dedicated to that now. They are
known as MAPS – mapping and
planning support.
The work MAPS did with Victoria
Police post the bush fires clearly
showed that these volunteers
were able to sustain long
consistent deployment.
At what point were those
volunteers down in Victoria?
At the end of Day 2 there was
a request offered by the ACT.
This was absorbed within three
hours of the request being
made. Within 24 hours of that
we had crews on the ground at
Williamstown Police Search and
Rescue centre getting briefings
for deployment. So they were
active on the ground with the
police on Day 3.
What was the technological
breakthrough in Victoria?
A lot of paradigm shifts came
together there. The first was
the advent of 3G networks in
our mobile phone world. Spatial
technology revolves around large
graphics - aerial photography or
topographic maps. If you want
to send those electronically in
the field then you need to have
big data pipelines. The Next G
network introduced that.
So in Victoria we had police
officers walking around (in the
fire-affected areas) with palm
pilots collecting data for Disaster
Victim Identification.
They knew exactly where they
were because they have a GPS
in their palm pilot. The palm pilot
was ruggedized, it was dustproof,
it was resistant-proof and
more importantly, it was shockproof
- because all emergency
workers like dropping things
don’t we?
The police were able to move
from paper to an electronic realm
so the incident management
teams were able to see exactly
where they were and exactly
what they had done. This assisted
the planning teams…Rather than
going out and collecting wad
loads of paper in manila folders
and employing 20-30 data entry
clerks that stay up to midnight
entering data - because this is
what we did on the first few days
after Black Saturday.
We were able to have that
data integrated into a database
instantly, allowing those decision
makers to plan forward straight
away. That’s the advance that has
been made.
How quickly did it happen that
you switched from paper over to
electronic?
That is probably the most
amazing part of the whole story.
The fact that those volunteers
were there gave us the ability
to put together a system for the
research of all the properties
in the Kinglake/Murrundindi
Complex of fires within 24 hours!
From zero database and a paper
system, to a fully digital backend
set up database that was sharing
data across the intranet of Victoria
Police out to external agencies as
well as consuming information
from other agencies.
It was all set up in a 24-hour
period. As a testament to what
they did, they never had to
change it after that. It worked,
it was solid, it never failed
throughout the whole process.
It shows us that the technology
is there today, it is solid today
and we should start to trust it
and employ more resources
into spatial technology for
decision-support in emergency
management.
And this information was being
sent in real time?
That’s another paradigm shift.
The ability to stream data live
from the field into the IMT!
It means that you are seeing
the information live rather than
waiting for the end of the shift or
when the crew leader finally gets
back to the fire control centre.
How do you think that will affect
firefighting in the future?
It’s like that old analogy ‘a picture
paints a thousand words’.
Well I like to say that new spatial
technologies in emergency
management change that to
‘a picture paints a thousand
spreadsheets’. It paints a lot of
data!
If we can stream that live stuff
back then decision makers can
work more effectively.
‘Our plan is to put a bulldozer
track there.’
‘But hang on Sir, the fire has
already crossed that area.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘We’ve got a live stream of GPS
data coming in. We’ve got a live
stream of infrared radar coming
in or information from satellites.’
These are all technologies that
can be adapted into a spatial
environment. This is where we
are going in the world. GPS is
about inventing data - its location
intelligence - not just about
where you are standing.
Hear the full interview with
Steve Forbes on http://
www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/podcasts
20 BUSH FIREbulletin // INTERNATIONAL WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE: FACING OUR FUTURE