From the Boulder Daily Camera:
The Boulder Fire Department took advantage of a multi-jurisdictional wildfire training exercise Friday to test out a new technology, called Android Team Awareness Kit, that they hope will help them better coordinate efforts to fight large wildland fires and communicate with crews on the ground.
The app, designed by PAR Government Systems Corporation, is based off of military technology designed to track personnel and feed them geographical information in real time….
Using the technology, firefighters would be able to see a map of the area, the location of crews on the ground and even live video sent from aerial support to give them a bigger and better picture of a wildland fire.
“That helps the firefighters be more situationally aware,” said David Tally, the director of applied technology at PAR. “This will greatly help the guys who are fighting the fires.”
Boulder Fire Department was chosen to help pilot the testing of the app, and crews are using a scheduled training that started on Friday to test out the app, which can run off of cellphone networks or a mobile network in more remote areas.
