Public Safety Blog - Page 2

By Mike Cox, Fire; Rescue, and EMS Industry Manager; Esri

Natural and man-made disasters test public safety agencies at the local, regional, and state levels on a daily basis. These no-notice events often require regional, statewide, or interstate mutual aid. Such incidents can create an environment where missions and priorities change at a moment's notice. The processes that organizations have relied on for years often put stress on agencies seeking assistance during the initial stages of a significant incident.

Modern challenges require a modern approach. Agencies and organizations need tools and operational capabilities to adapt to fluid risks and to support a variety of mission requirements. Today, we must be able to identify the need for assistance, request the appropriate type of resources, locate available resources, deploy them in a timely manner, and analyze the success of those efforts. Through the power of geospatial technology, organizations can now adopt a smarter, more integrative approach to mutual aid.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) has identified the need for this approach and, through a partnership with Juvare and Esri, is developing the National Mutual Aid System (NMAS). This application will incorporate the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data (HIFLD) being collected by fire departments across the nation. During large-scale emergencies and disasters, it is critical for response personnel to have easy access to a mutual aid system for managing their resources. The IAFC will manage information sharing, event reporting, and task management in a central, web-based environment that allows the IAFC to effortlessly connect to partner agencies and organizations during response efforts.

The IAFC has several initiatives that impact the implementation of a national mutual aid system. These initiatives support the vision of the IAFC and advancements in the use of GIS in the fire service. This includes supporting leadership, governance, and policy development during the implementation of GIS technologies. GIS allows us to increase responder safety, reduce risk, and build stronger relationships with our communities. These geospatial tools improve outcomes through spatial analytics and data-driven decision-making.

These initiatives include the IAFC GIS Portal, which links fire chiefs to data. This portal allows fire departments to access existing data layers, create their own data layers, and share data with other stakeholders. This portal (available at https://www.iafc.org/topics-and-tools/resources/resource/iafc-public-safety-gis-viewer) educates fire service members on the value of GIS resources. Using GIS web maps allows responders to share data across jurisdictional boundaries during significant incidents.

The portal provides access to Esri's ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World data including Tapestry Segmentation data. Tapestry classifies US residential neighborhoods into 67 unique segments based on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The data allows departments to get insights so that you can identify your community members and people in need.

The IAFC promotes the use of GIS field applications for real-time data collection. These applications are changing the way incident commanders are making decisions. The ability to collect incident intelligence in real time allows for better data-driven decision-making.

Geoenabling field data collection, mutual aid coordination, and logistical support brings the response process into the twenty-first century. This allows us to know where the resources needed for a response are located and where they should be deployed.

Recent hurricane responses in Texas and Florida provided case studies on the effectiveness of the technology to support response. The implementation of these field applications provided incident intelligence in real time during the response. Urban search and rescue teams were provided with Esri's Survey123 for ArcGIS field application and just-in-time training during the response to the hurricanes. These teams were then able to collect and submit real-time data to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), command personnel, and Emergency Operations Centers during the response. The use of field applications and operations dashboard views allowed decision-makers to coordinate resources based on an assessment of actual field conditions.

IAFC National Mutual Aid System

The IAFC's Mutual Aid Net program began in 2008. It includes a static resource database involving multiple states. There was an identified need to provide geospatial data to support this program. NMAS is the result of this need. It is everyone's everyday mutual aid application.

What NMAS Is

NMAS is the evolution of the Intrastate Mutual Aid System and Mutual Aid Net. It leverages the technical innovation and expertise of WebEOC and Esri, combined with the practical experience of the IAFC with state and local partners.

In October 2017, the IAFC, leader in emergency response worldwide, entered into an agreement with Esri and Juvare to build the next generation of NMAS software. In partnership with Esri and Juvare—the global leaders in spatial analytics and health and safety solutions, respectively—the IAFC is excited to bring this valuable contribution to the next stage. The new software version combines Esri's powerful geographic information system, ArcGIS, with Juvare's crisis information management software, WebEOC, to better manage and track emergency service resources during large-scale emergencies that require mutual aid.

NMAS is designed for all-hazard mutual aid coordination at the regional and state levels, including systems such as Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). The IAFC is working with US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service fire and aviation management on Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS) data exchange capabilities.

Localities will enter and manage their resources in NMAS. Single resources, strike teams, task forces, or mission-ready packages will be entered by the authority that has jurisdiction, and the resource availability will be determined at the local level.

During an event, localities and states can create an incident report in the NMAS application. This incident data will provide responders with a common operating picture of the response.

The requesting locality can then request resources and filter the available resources by type, location, and cost. 

The NMAS application will send a request to the resource owner, which may accept or deny the request based on the needs of the resource owner.

The system will then route mutual aid resources to the event location. This routing will allow the requesting agency and the resource provider to track resources on the map and know their status during the response.

NMAS will provide unparalleled information sharing, decision support, and situational awareness capabilities to jurisdictions, regions, and countries around the globe. NMAS develops the ability to visualize where resources are, where they need to go, and the response time for immediate decision-making and action. NMAS allows for real-time data exchange between system administrators and responders in transit and at incidents.

GIS provides the ability to manage data with a visual perspective that easily communicates the resource status during a response. It also allows public safety officials to analyze multiple datasets to determine how these incidents will impact citizens, infrastructure, and the environment.

If you have any questions or comments about NMAS or the use of GIS for public safety, please feel free to contact Esri fire, rescue, and emergency medical services industry manager Mike Cox (mike_cox@esri.com), or Jeff Dulin, assistant director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (Jdulin@iafc.org).

We look forward to seeing you at the 2018 FedGIS Conference. To help you and your organization gain the maximum benefit from this event, we have highlighted a few resources among the hundreds of different activities, workshops and Expo opportunities available on March 20-21.  Learn more at 2018 Esri Federal GIS Conference. 

by Mike Cox, Esri Fire and EMS Industry Manager and Jeff Baranyi, Esri Public Safety Assistance Program Operations Manager

We realize that public safety agencies face challenges that are more complex and unpredictable than ever before. These events involve social unrest, public health issues, and severe weather events that create an environment where missions and priorities change daily. The approaches that organizations have relied on for years are no longer as effective to secure our communities.

Modern challenges require a modern approach. Agencies and organizations need tools and operational capabilities to adapt to volatile conditions and support a variety of mission requirements. Today, we must be able to identify threats, collaborate and unify operations, rapidly respond to events, communicate with the public, and analyze the success of those efforts. Through the power of geospatial technology, organizations can now adopt a smarter, more integrative approach to safety and security. With the right technology, data, people, and processes, every community can become a safe community.

The challenges for public safety agencies are complex, and they continue to evolve each day. There are more demands on agencies—from adapting to an aging population to the increasing severity and frequency of events that we must respond to and the fact that the role of public safety is changing as we strive to keep our communities livable. The health of a community depends on the effective operation of its public safety agencies, and GIS can improve that effectiveness.

One concept for addressing these emerging issues efficiently is the establishment of a comprehensive community risk reduction (CRR) program. CRR coordinates emergency operations with the goal of preventing and mitigating the effects of an event across the community and at the fire station level. Involvement of frontline personnel is critical for field data collection. GIS can provide solutions to lessen the impact of the day-to-day activities of the frontline personnel.

The benefits of a comprehensive CRR program include bettering the health of the community and improving firefighter safety, which can impact the accreditation process. An effective CRR program allows us to identify new and emerging hazards and provide data to influence the budgetary process, track the changing demographics of our community, and identify under-served populations.

CRR is not limited to fire prevention. This program can be applied to any risk you identify. Consider the risk assessment for fires occurring in single-family dwellings. Might a similar assessment, including demographic and CAD data, be applied to fall prevention or any health problem for which data is available? The CRR process allows us to focus our efforts on the population in need efficiently.

Fire and emergency medical services exist not only to respond to emergency incidents but also to proactively prevent or mitigate the impact of such incidents within their communities. CRR provides a more focused approach to reducing specific risks. In addition, a comprehensive CRR program involving community partners, responders, and other staff can result in an organizational culture that recognizes the importance of reducing risks within a community.

This is the CRR planning cycle provided by Vision 20/20. Like many of our planning activities, it continually assesses the community, prioritizes risk, implements risk reduction activities, and evaluates those activities. This process may influence an agency's accreditation process. The CRR process provides a focused approach to reducing specific risks.

The process begins with identifying the risk. Risks can be man-made or naturally occurring. These can include preventable injuries, controllable health risks (e.g., obesity, diabetes) mass casualty incidents (e.g., active shooter), major hazmat releases, and terrorism as well as severe weather, flooding, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

Risk assessment allows public safety agencies to prioritize those risks. This initial step in preparedness allows for mitigation efforts, planning, and the ability make data-driven decisions to properly deploy resources. This is accomplished by gathering information about what is occurring within your community. The data will be used to identify both current risks and trends based on historical information. Typically, there will be many resources from which to acquire the data that's necessary to identify current and potential risks.

The following data is available for analysis:

• Fire Department Incident Data
• Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Data
• Emergency Management Disaster-Related Data
• Public Health Data

GIS provides the ability to present this data in a visual perspective that easily communicates the risk within a community. It also allows public safety officials to analyze multiple datasets to determine how these risks will impact citizens, infrastructure, and the environment.

How would you prefer to assess risk? How should we view and analyze our data? Here is some National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data:

What does this view tell us? It lists the fires that occurred, the incurred property loss, and the incident type. Or is the following visual perspective better? It provides a better way to easily assess and communicate the risk within specific areas of a community.

This map contains the same data and provides a visual reference to the fire by incident type, occupancy type, and location. Here we can easily identify areas of our community that have concentrated risk or risks of a certain type.

When evaluating fire department incident data, it will be necessary to identify those factors contributing to the severity of the hazards and those populations at greatest risk. We accomplish this by developing a community profile. This profile will include demographic data such as age, gender, income, and other socioeconomic and cultural information. The data from a tax parcel layer can be added to evaluate housing type, age of structures, and density.

You can find demographic information in many places. One excellent source is Esri's Tapestry Segmentation. Tapestry helps you understand your community's lifestyle choices such as what the people in your community buy and how they spend their free time. Tapestry classifies US residential neighborhoods into 67 unique segments based on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Tapestry can help you gain more insights so you can identify your community members and under-served markets. You can also get higher response rates because you avoid less profitable areas.

Another component of conducting a community risk assessment is to identify specific target hazards within your service area. These are sometimes referred to as critical facilities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines these as "facilities in either the public or private sector that provide essential products and services to the general public; are otherwise necessary to preserve the welfare and quality of life in the community; or fulfill important public safety, emergency response, and/or disaster recovery functions."

The following map depicts various locations of target hazards based on defined criteria using a scoring system. In this case, properties are color‐coded in accordance with their score, making it easier to quickly identify those with the highest levels of risk. Another option would be to generate a map depicting only those facilities with the highest levels of risk rather than all properties and structures.

Esri has a target hazard assessment tool available. The Target Hazard Analysis tool uses tax parcel data from the assessor's office as input into the analysis. Tax parcel information includes the property boundaries, use description, building area, number of floors, and assessed value. These attributes are used in the analysis to determine the following hazard criteria:

• Occupancy type
• Life safety
• Fire flow requirements
• Economic impact
• Building height
• Building area

In addition, this tax parcel may contain information on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; roof construction; basements; residential elevators; and other datasets that may prove useful.

And if a locality needs specific site data that's not available through tax parcel information, the data can also be collected in the field through the Collector for ArcGIS application on any mobile device and submitted in real time to the evaluation tool. Collecting lock box locations and sprinkler and standpipe connections can be done in a paperless environment, placing the feature on the map in real time.

This assessment is now used to focus efforts on reducing the risk for the population identified. GIS can be used to manage that reduction effort efficiently.

References

1. Esri: esri.com
2. Vision 20/20: http://www.strategicfire.org
3. American Housing Survey: http://www.census.gov/programs‐surveys/ahs/
4. American Community Survey: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
5. Oliver, D. (2011, November). FireRescue Magazine, 42–47
6. United States Census Bureau: www.census.gov
7. American FactFinder: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml

By Jeff Dulin, Assistant Director, IAFC Research Center

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) is an international nonprofit 501(c)(3) association representing the leaders of the nation's fire, rescue, and emergency medical services. Since 1873, the IAFC has provided a forum for fire and emergency service leaders to exchange ideas, develop professionally, and uncover the latest products and services available to first responders.

The IAFC has developed a partnership with Esri, a global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, to create the National Public Safety GIS Platform. This online site is for data and situational awareness sharing. The IAFC realized that not all fire and emergency service providers had access to quality GIS tools or data. Through the partnership with Esri, the IAFC is building an online portal for those agencies to collect, share, and then view their data. In addition, the data will become part of national datasets to be used for regional and national responses.

Phase one of this three-phase project was the development of the National GIS Viewer to display relevant datasets that support planning, preparation, response, and recovery efforts. This viewer is also being used to support the ongoing development of datasets. Through the IAFC's online portal, the viewer serves as an open site where users can view the data and make situational awareness decisions. The IAFC is committed to offering this capability and makes it available, without charge, to anyone who registers for an account.

Phase two will be the updating and development of datasets that are of local or national importance. The IAFC was awarded the stewardship of the Fire Department Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) by the Department of Homeland Security. This dataset is the baseline data for all fire departments and fire stations in the nation. Beginning spring 2017, the IAFC will begin an outreach to update and verify this data and provide a mechanism to maintain the most current data. Through an Esri application, fire department officials will be able to update their data and thus provide the most current information available to all who use the HIFLD sets.

A second part of phase two will involve the collection of local datasets by individual fire and emergency services agencies. The IAFC, in partnership with Esri, has secured a large number of Esri named user licenses to loan out to fire departments on a temporary basis. This will allow them to collect data valuable to national-level datasets. Along with information gathered through existing GIS layers, this collection will support the development of the first national datasets of emergency response data viewable in one location.

Phase three will be the development of an updated Fire Mutual Aid System. In 2008, in response to Hurricane Katrina, the IAFC developed the system that allowed them to move fire resources intrastate as well as interstate. The current project is to update the system to a more robust and geoenabled system using Esri's suite of tools. In partnership with the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation, work is under way to develop a new system that will enable not only the identification of appropriate resources but also provide mechanisms for assignment, routing, and tracking of resources and information sharing through mobile-enabled apps. The system will be developed to support existing state and national response plans and provide the latest capabilities available.  

This partnership is a crucial milestone for the IAFC in its mission to lead, educate, and serve. The IAFC has taken an aggressive approach to provide the latest and most technologically advanced solutions available to our members. This partnership with Esri will help advance public safety agencies into the next generation of service. For the staff at the IAFC, working on this project with Esri is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling projects they have undertaken.

The Esri International User Conference has many presentations and events with hundreds of topics covered. To help you find your way to the Public Safety, Law Enforcement, and National Security sessions and events, we have prepared a more focused agenda for you.

(Includes: Law Enforcement, Fire, Wildland Fire, Homeland Security, Disaster/Emergency Response, E-911 and EMS)

http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/events/user-conference/pdfs/industry-focus/2015/UC15-Island-F...