How We Made Mobile a Firefighter's Tool
by Jason Ary, June 2013
Double Encore partnered with the Golden Fire Department (GFD) and the Colorado School of Mines to create a map-based application that will assist firefighters in quickly locating and getting to emergencies. When responding to calls, the GFD uses maps built by the city’s Geographic Information Systems department that detail every single building, road and fire hydrant. Until this summer, these maps were printed, copied and put into “map books” in every fire truck. Some of the maps were even hand-drawn!
“That’s not acceptable when we are responding to a fire or a heart attack,” says Chad Wachs, a captain with the Golden Fire Department. “We need to know exactly where your house is to get there as fast as possible, every time.”
. . . . . [And thus, Firebolt was born!]
“It was better than anything I could have imagined,” says Wachs. “Now we can easily get to any address in the city and find the closest fire hydrant. The Mines team also built the application to allow us to update maps and even add new maps in the future without having to re-write any code.” The iPad app uses Cloud technology to update maps in all fire trucks with the click of a button so no matter what type of incident the fire department responds to, the map will always be up-to-date.
Collaborators
Special thanks go to Chadwick Wachs for initiating the project and providing invaluable insight into the specific needs of the fire department. Thanks also goes out to Double Encore for providing the mentorship, resources, and work environment to the Colorado School of Mines field sessions teams during summer 2013 and summer 2014.
Bolt Team 2013 (Bolt v1.0)
Jonathan Aspinwall
Matthew Jordan
Derek Schissler
Bolt Team 2014 (Bolt v2.0)
Marcus Bermel
Sarah Falkenstein
Paulo Iza
Trevor Westphal
Double Encore Support
Amanreet Bajwa
Brianna Crout
Chris Weathers
