Bay Area firefighters develop game-changing wildfire technology

SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. – Due to the fact the first main firestorms of 2017, significant know-how has been strengthening resources for firefighters, who still mostly operate on the floor and generally with little info about how the general combat is likely.

Two Bay Space firefighters have produced an general scenario awareness software that other firefighters appreciate — and say should really distribute to other departments.

Whether on an iPad or other pill, the Bay-Location-produced “Pill Command” procedure is practically nothing significantly less than a technological recreation changer for firefighters, by firefighters.

Contra Costa County firefighters William Pidgeon, who is also a laptop or computer science skilled, and Andy Bozzo, a functioning firefighter, made use of their true world activities to arrive up with the Pill Command program.

The software is now made use of by 265 hearth departments across North The united states, and its consumer selection is rising each day.

“I was not ready to establish a mission essential software. So we elevated some income with mates and relatives, made a business and partnered with a program advancement corporation to establish the initial edition of the application,” reported Pidgeon.

The application is all about the situational recognition of the full hearth incident, presenting information and facts readily available to all incident commanders and very first responders.

“The awesome issue about this, it is on an iPad, which, for most departments, they can find the money for to invest in,” said Main Costa.

Ahead of Tablet Command, laptop personal computer devices that did half as substantially were, at minimum, twice the price tag. To this day, any departments even now have only paper notes, paper maps and a radio, with little obtain to the large image.

Two Sonoma County firefighters observed the software package work while they ended up on mutual help incidents, and they fought challenging to carry it to the Bay Spot.

“I was blown absent. I was like, ‘Wow, we really will need to convey this to Sonoma County,’” claimed Petaluma Hearth Department Assistant Chief Chad Costa.

“It is, by considerably, fingers down, a single of the ideal engineering tools I have at any time utilized,” added Sonoma Valley Fire Battalion Main Spencer Andreis.

Pill Command involves any area’s hearth historical past, all roads statewide (which include back again streets and hearth roadways), the spot of each and every piece of gear and hundreds of cameras (such as remote utility cameras), local hearth temperature and is infinitely expandable.

From the industry, firefighters can input info in actual time, significantly dashing up and strengthening responses.

If there’s any weakness to this technique at all, it transpires in distant places exactly where there’s small or no Wi-Fi. But, with industrial, world-wide-web satellite Wi-Fi presently on the market place, that trouble will probably be cleared up as effectively.