GeoMAC Team Members are: Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Private Partners ESRI, ERDAS, Sun Microsystems, and IBM have provided hardware, software, and programming support. For additional information, please contact the National Interagency Fire Center at (1) + 208-387-5050 or via email, geomac@usgs.gov.
Australians have a similar web site available: http://www.sentinel.csiro.au. The Sentinel Fire Mapping is a mapping tool designed to provide timely fire location data to emergency service managers across Australia. Users also can identify fire locations that pose a potential risk to communities and properties. Sentinel Fire is the result of a collaboration among the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO), CSIRO Land and Water, and Australian Geosciences to design and
build a system that will help protect Australians during bushfires.
For additional information, contact Alex Held, telephone: (61) + 2-6246-5718,
fax: (61) + 2-6246-5800 or Dan Carmody, telephone: (61) + 2-6265-5812, fax: (61) + 2-6265-3041.
May 2003 GeoMAC display of previous 2003 wildland fires. Black triangles are lightning caused, red triangles are human and other causes.
Fire Service Emergency Vehicle Safety Initiative
Too many firefighters are killed in vehicle accidents when responding to or returning from emergencies. In fact, it is the second leading cause of loss of life for firefighters. In an effort to reduce this statistic, the U. S. Fire Administration (USFA) has joined with the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (DOT/NHTSA) to examine collisions involving
fire apparatus, personal vehicles, and falls from the apparatus that kill and injure firefighters.
As part of this new project a National Forum on Emergency Vehicle Safety (working with national level fire and emergency service associations and other organizations) will be conducted to develop draft “best practices” guidelines to mitigate these incidents. A series of tests of the “best practices to mitigate these
incidents ” will be conducted in fire departments of various sizes and staffing components, and geographic regions.
Once consensus endorsement has been obtained for “best practices” the information will be distributed to local-level fire departments and other organizations. Hopefully use of the “best practices” will reduce firefighter life loss of emergency vehicle crashes.
For additional information on USFA’s Emergency Vehicle Safety Research Projects and other resources go to the USFA web site at: http://www.usfa.fema.gov/dhtml/inside-usfa/research.cfm
Tanker truck crash. (Photo used with permission from WrightwoodCalif.com)
... What is it Good For?
Lots of Americans are vacationing in CONUS. Are you a member of the ANG? What’s new at NIST? Do you have a JEEP? In government, fire service and other communications, acronyms are common abbreviations sprinkled though out the text. Where do you find the meaning of this jargon when your dictionary fails?
Look in FAAT. FAAT (FEMA Acronyms Abbreviations & Terms) is a compilation of fire and emergency terms, although it is not exhaustive. It does contain obsolete terms or organizations that may be found in the extant literature. An example of an obsolete entry would be: NCCEM National Coordinating Council on
Emergency Management (obsolete;
replaced by IACM). If you want to view or download it, the site is:
www.fema.gov/doc/library/
faatlist2002.doc
For a paper copy, contact FEMA Publications at 800-480-2520 (North America only).
FEMA looks forward to comments and recommendations; they are always welcome. E-mails may be sent to FAAT@fema.gov.
[CONUS:
Continental (or contiguous) United States; ANG: Air National
Guard; NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology;
JEEP: Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan]