The likelihood and occurrence of megafires across the US have increased over the years due to drier conditions, more ignition sources and other factors. As a result, many technological systems and devices have been introduced for detecting and tracking these fires. In the following article fire experts recommend greater accessibility to fire technology, better coordination […]

As wildfires raged across the West last summer, firefighters tapped into high-tech tools to fight the blazes. More than 30 drone pilots, for example, guided UAVs into areas in Washington, Oregon, and California that were too dangerous for humans. The images — transmitted back to mobile devices — provided data to help track fires and […]

In 2018, US public safety agencies like police, fire, EMS and emergency support personnel became connected with each other through the FirstNet network. The network has been very successful at coordinating efforts of the agencies during disasters. Low-cost mesh networking devices can use radio frequencies to enable communications completely independent of cell, Wi-Fi and satellite […]

Firefighters work hard every day to protect our communities, but often they do so without the technical support they need to get the job done easily and safely. Given the complex, extreme nature of the work, these men and women require powerful hardware that can withstand high temps– but that’s not all. What happens if […]

During 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, the U.S. suffered through 16 catastrophic weather events. These included three of the five costliest and most destructive hurricanes on record. Not only did these storms cost hundreds of billions of dollars, they also caused massive outages. Of the top five power losses in the […]

With natural disasters costing the U.S. $91 billion in 2018 alone, and only predicted to continue accelerating in the coming years due to warming temperatures worldwide, emergency responders and public safety agencies are looking for ways to better prepare a disaster response plan. When the concept of FirstNet was born after first responders couldn’t communicate […]