As members of the fire service, it's important for us to identify community risk in order to improve our response and plan for community preparedness and risk reduction. Granted, this is a process that involves a lot of analysis and planning, but reducing community risk keeps everyone safe; citizens and safety responders alike. Creating a community risk reduction plan, implementing and monitoring it for any changes necessary isn't easy, but by balancing resources and using the 5 Es of community risk reduction will help you come up with a great plan to get all departments on board.
Recently, we invited Captain Chris Ingram of the Santa Clara County Fire Department to share his experience on the Oroville Dam Incident. There were a lot of lessons to be learned that we wanted to share with everyone to show a better look into the way technology is making a difference in ways we hadn't originally anticipated, and we thought were interesting.
It takes a lot to bring safety to firefighters battling wildfires. This is just a fact of life. To know the real time location of firefighting resources and the real time location of the fire so you can allocate resources the right way to keep first responders safe can be challenging. By bringing these two pieces of information together, you create the ability to prevent firefighter fatalities by enhancing situational awareness.
Many of the large wildfires you read about in the news last year have had contributions from a system from Klamath County, Oregon. Central Oregon fire experts have been pushing the boundaries to bring together these ideas in a modern, effective way. They developed a common sense, deployable system. Based on years of senior fire management experience drawn from vast experience, they create technology that works for locals, and ties their efforts directly in with large state and Federal systems as well. And they bring it all together to keep the wildfires from causing any fatalities or too much damage. The system shows the location of firefighters, no matter where they are in the county, so that they can allocate resources to the wildfire the right way. Many other states and counties are using versions of this system. However, the Klamath County Situation Analyst (KCSA) goes above and beyond.
There's nothing we enjoy more than sharing the merits of the fine people that are part of the Intterra family any chance we get. However, this isn't your standard 'Get to Know the Team' type of post, as we're overjoyed to express the just how excited we are to have our new Chief Operations Officer, Molly Hausmann. We love the vision and capability Molly brings to her new executive role, and we intend to share a little more about her coming into this demanding role at Intterra.
