GIS
Mapping
Keeps San Diego Firefighters Informed CDF
In
creating these essential maps, the California Department of Forestry
and Fire Protection (CDF) and their contractor NorthTree Fire
International received support from ESRI, San Diego Geographic
Information Source (SanGIS), Space Imaging, Hewlett-Packard, county
of San Diego, United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service,
and San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). With updated
maps needed twice daily and multiple information sources to integrate,
the CDF geographic information system (GIS) team was thankful
for the time and resources coming in from numerous local organizations
and from GIS professionals working around the clock, their own
homes at risk from the devastating blaze.
"If we didn't have these maps, the firefighters wouldn't
have known where to go, how to get there, or what their assignments
were," said Harter. "Using GIS, we could pull all of
the necessary information and help them make their plans of attack."
"ESRI, SanGIS, NorthTree ... all of the groups pulled together
to create one GIS team for this fire. I don't think CDF could
have done it alone; this was a team approach. Their expertise
and knowledge, the combined effort, made our jobs so much easier,"
said Jason Graziano, GIS team, CDF.
"We all brought something different to the table," said
Tim Craig, regional account manager, ESRI. "We were able
to use our various strengths, knowledge of the software, and knowledge
of the area's data sets to get firefighters the information they
needed. This was a great example of bringing local resources to
bear on a regional emergency."
For further information:
http://www.esri.com/news/releases/03_4qtr/cedar.html
Excerpted from www.esri.com/news/
Copyright © 1995-2003 ESRI