CalTopo and ArcGIS

[MeleKoneya]

Good morning,

Our Fire Department is looking at CalTopo for SAR.   We are currently using Field Maps for various purposes including location sharing.      We have a large area in the City of Scottsdale that is set aside for passive use and we have had issues finding people who are in its 36K Acres environs,.

Licensing in ArcGIS is not currently an issue for us as we have an ELA.

I am starting to look in to CalTopo to see what it offers that ArcGIS doesn't and vice versa.

Has anyone collected the pros and cons of both platforms?     

Is possible to integrate ArcGIS layers in to CalTopo and possible to pull in the location information that CalTopo offers?

I am just starting to look into solutions so my questions so far as quite basic.

Thank you for any insights.

Mele

[Kenny_Ratliff]

Hi Mele,

We use SARTopo for our county SAR and other responses.  Yes, there are ways to bring in REST services of all kinds.  The SARTopo environment has a lot of focused tools for search and rescue response.  I highly recommend it!  Feel free to contact me by email if you would like to discuss further.  Kenny Ratliff – kenny.ratliff@ballardsvillefire.com

Best regards - Kenny

[MarkAnderson6]

I have used SAR Topo for both air and ground search in C.A.P. While primarily designed for ground SAR, its capabilities can be adapted for air SAR as well. It allows you to import data from ground GPS units or kml files from an app like Radar 24 to develop search area coverages for post sortie analysis. I have created POA extents using Bob Koester's probability data which lists 34 subject profiles. Koester's book, Lost Person Behavior ( www.dbs-sar.com,  ISBN 978-1-879471-39-9) is essential for getting the most out of SAR Topo. There are downloadable kml files for C.A.P. sectional grids, (can't remember url, sorry). You can define operational periods, resources by type and # of persons. It allows you to print out all the ICS forms  and SAR specific forms. 

I would suggest looking into the National Search and Rescue School's Inland SAR Planning course. They put on several classes a year around the country, Maritime Search & Rescue. it is based at Coast Guard Station Yorktown, but is a joint effort with the Air Force. I have been twice and it is stellar. It is a 5 day class with the last 2 days being a complex SAR tabletop exercise encompassing both air and ground SAR. You will receive a DVD with all course and supplemental documents, a program called Search Manager  for calculating POS for air and ground search using PDO and POC. It allows keeping a running total of sorties and their POS and computes a cPOS (cumulative POS). I could go on ad infinitum 😁. If you have questions, feel free to reach out