Throughout every firefighter’s career, there has been the challenge of responses to fires that are inside of dangerous and complex multistory structures. Of course, every emergency response scene is taxing and unpredictable, but multistory buildings take risk to another level, literally.
In large cities, incident commanders (ICs) routinely send firefighters into 10-plus-story buildings. This adds complexity for firefighter accountability, particularly when there is a large fire that affects multiple floors. To date, most firefighter tracking is accomplished and maintained by voice communications at each point of movement. This is particularly ineffective, especially when between floors, and becomes even more complex when there are multiple teams that operate in extreme environments of heat, smoke and zero visibility.
Given these complexities, it prompts the following questions: How can you keep track of firefighters as they move up and down floors? What can be done to help them from getting lost or trapped? How can you direct firefighters to locate and rescue a downed firefighter?
Up to this point, the answers to these questions have been difficult, if not impossible. Firefighters utilize their radios, signal a mayday message (a fire chief’s worst nightmare) and do their best to report where they are. Although helpful, PASS devices remain very limited. Mostly, a search begins at a member’s last communicated location that’s listed on the assignment/accountability board.
Firefighters learned the hard way that vertical location is a necessary component of personal safety, situational awareness and operational effectiveness. High-rise buildings become multistory grids that offer no way of tracking firefighter movements.
Detecting the z-axis
For decades, firefighter location that lacks the z-axis (elevation) has been the No. 1 technology failing. Despite all of the amazing data and tools to which firefighters had access recently, vertical location always eluded the capabilities. Even with all of the advancements in GPS and other location services, height (elevation) just wasn’t achievable.
First responders have asked for vertical location for a long time, bending the ear of any technology company or regulatory agency that would listen. Many companies and agencies tried to make it work, but vertical location has been an extremely difficult problem to solve. There was no obvious, cost-effective, easy-to-deploy solution.
Now, after all of these years, firefighters will be excited to learn that the wait is over. 2021 will be the year that vertical location finally becomes a reality for firefighters, first responders, 9-1-1 callers and even consumers. All of the technological and regulatory stars finally aligned.
NextNav worked long and hard to develop this lifesaving technology. By assembling the technology, regulatory frameworks, operational alliances and responder collaborations, NextNav managed to create a system for vertical location that delivers across entire cities, not just specific buildings. It is 94 percent accurate to 10 feet, or about the height of a standard building floor. As recently as a few years ago, most experts in the location industry never thought this was possible.
NextNav is ahead of its installment schedule and will be in 105 major cities by the end of March 2021. Once complete, this service will cover approximately 94 percent of structures that are taller than two stories in these cities.
How will firefighters and other first responders experience vertical location? There are two main ways.
First, in January 2021, NextNav rolled out vertical location for public safety applications through its partnership with FirstNet. FirstNet has been committed to solving the z-axis to provide the capability to locate firefighters, other responders and citizens who are in need of service, and now the platform lived up to its promise to engage this technology.
As a result, altitude information will start popping up in situational-awareness apps, push-to-talk apps and other tools that are used every day in the field by firefighters. ICs not only will see horizontal location but also measurements for height above terrain and estimates of the floor on which someone is located. This technology will afford the IC the ability to track real-time movements of personnel. Future enhancements will provide interfacing to lidar-scanned buildings and integrated floor plans.
Second, in April 2021, wireless carriers will add vertical location as a data field for 9-1-1 callers. So, when firefighters and EMTs roll up to a multistory building, they not only will have the standard x/y location data but also how high up and/or what floor a 9-1-1 caller is on. In other words, no more inaccurate locations or searching for people floor by floor. No more guesswork about what floor people believe that they’re on. Responders will have a precise snapshot of where people are located.
This technology will be a complete game changer, streamlining the way that first responders work together in a crisis with the ability to see all of the responders who are on scene and their specific locations. Most importantly, it will save lives. Increased situational awareness will reduce the possibility of firefighters getting lost or trapped in multistory buildings, and 9-1-1 callers who are in buildings will get the help that they need a lot faster. ICs will be able to respond to complex emergencies more effectively. Everyone will benefit.
Much-needed technology
As with any technology, there will be an adjustment period. For example, it still is in the beginning stages to think about how best to visualize emergency response scenes in 3D. Tracking fire, police, EMTs and other personnel at a glance in a building will take some getting used to, and training will be necessary.
Firefighting is a profession in which the emergence of truly impactful innovation often is few and far between. Change comes slowly, and it’s rare for something new to truly shake up operational aspects of the job.
This is one of those rare occasions. For a long time, firefighters pushed and prodded for a capability such as this. It’s very satisfying and exciting to see the collaboration of so many people—technologists, regulators and first responders—develop this much-needed and long-awaited lifesaving technology.
Charles Werner
CHARLES WERNER, who is a Firehouse contributing editor, is a 45-year veteran of public safety. He served with the Charlottesville, VA, Fire Department for 37 years, serving the past 10 years as chief. Following retirement, Werner served for two years as senior adviser and acting deputy state coordinator for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. He has chaired: DHS SAFECOM Executive Committee; IAFC Technology Council; National Information Sharing Consortium; and DHS/White House Incident Management Information Sharing SubCommittee. Werner currently serves as the director of DroneResponders Public Safety Alliance, chair of the National Council on Public Safety UAS and chair of the Virginia Secure Commonwealth UAS Sub Panel.
