Redlands, California—ESRI showcased the first-ever Fire Rescue Advanced Technology Center, featuring geographic information system (GIS) software and other technologies used to enhance safety, increase effectiveness, and encourage excellence in all aspects of the fire service mission at the 2006 Fire Rescue International (FRI). The center presented advanced uses of GIS and supporting applications for virtually every aspect of operations and preparedness within nine demonstration areas. It provided a unique opportunity for conference attendees to understand how GIS is used today by leading agencies to better protect life and property.
Since 2000, ESRI professionals have demonstrated the latest uses of GIS for fire and emergency services. This year’s event showcased a large, comprehensive technology center that featured ESRI’s world-leading GIS software as well as solutions from its business partners used today by fire agencies around the world. It offered attendees at the center a staging area to learn, share, and communicate ideas.
“The 2006 Fire Rescue International Conference was special because it featured a venue that demonstrated how technology supports all aspects of the fire service mission through the Fire Rescue Advanced Technology Center,” says Russ Johnson, ESRI’s public safety manager. The showcase presented stationary and interactive displays of fire service technology applications with experienced fire service leaders and technical specialists guiding attendees through the one-of-a-kind integrated learning experience. The objective was to illustrate how technology can support all requirements of the fire service mission including planning, preparedness, prevention, response, command and control, and situational awareness.
Demonstrations included technologies that support incident reporting; virtual reality fire prevention inspections and code enforcement; standards of cover planning, tactical response, deployment apparatus and firefighter tracking, and incident management; and much more. Finally, situational awareness and common operating picture solutions were illustrated for gaining incident status, capturing real-time weather and census information, data fusion, hazardous materials evaluation, evacuation routing, incident modeling, and more.
Several leading ESRI business partners exhibited their solutions including
The Omega Group—planning and analysis software applications Virtual Reality Fire Prevention Software—inspection and code enforcement simulation Studio Software —virtual reality and video for fire suppression training Harmless Hazards —virtual reality fire suppression interactive training Sys Technology—situational awareness software Acceleron Technologies—firefighter tracking technologies BCS—fire and emergency medical services (EMS) apparatus tracking and display technologies Group One—tactical response and command and control software applications IBM—incident management system software applications Mitsubishi and Imtech—large screen display and software management technologies
About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit ESRI at www.esri.com.
