Brian Rokos
The Press-Enterprise
(TNS)
Riverside city firefighters combined several pieces of technology to hasten the rescue of two homeless men who climbed a tree with their dogs in the Santa Ana River bottom to escape swift, rising water on Thursday night, Feb. 13.
The rescue happened between the 60 Freeway and Mission Inn Avenue at about 9 p.m. But firefighters were initially dispatched, using the available information, to nearby Fairmount Park.
Battalion Chief Bruce Vanderhorst, the incident commander, then asked dispatchers to use data from one of the victim’s cell phone to find them. The dispatcher mined cell tower latitude and longitude data to generate a location using the What3Words app.
What3Words uses an algorithm that divides the world into 57 trillion 3-by-3 meter squares, each with a unique address using three random, common words. ( Riverside City Hall is located at develops/chickens/mini.) Hundreds of public safety agencies use the app, as do people setting up meeting locations at Coachella and ordering pizzas.
Vanderhorst has headed up the Fire Department’s digital mapping efforts since 2016. The technology marks locations for rescues, fires and command posts. It shows the location of trails in the river and Sycamore Canyon Park and lists the type of vehicles that can access them. Each fire engine is equipped with a computer that receives that information.
“It’s made us more efficient in our response,” Vanderhorst said Friday.
The department has been using What3Words for three years.
“We get a lot of people who come to Mount Rubidoux who get exhausted, who don’t have water with them, they don’t realize that it’s that far of a hike, and we’ll use What3Words to find the patient,” Vanderhorst said.
Firefighters made voice contact with the men in the river Thursday but could not see them. So firefighters launched a drone equipped with a heat sensor that detected the men even amid the cold rain.
The weather grounded rescue helicopters, so firefighters used chainsaws to clear a path to the men, whose feet were dangling in the water. Firefighters launched a boat and rescued the men, who were checked out by paramedics and were not reported injured.
No firefighters were injured, Vanderhorst said.
The operation, which prompted the closure of the Mission Inn bridge, concluded about 1:30 a.m.
The victims then returned to the river to wait for the water to recede, Vanderhorst said.
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