Episode 205: Mapping as a Superpower: GIS within Fire Service Operations in San Bernardino with Erin Opliger

Episode notes

How can fire departments leverage software tools that enhance situational awareness and embrace data-driven decision making?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

How San Bernardino's fire department uses GIS for situational awareness and public safety

The value of Intterra in firefighting operations for better decision-making

How San Bernardino is navigating geographical diversity and community risk reduction through GIS

Find out from Erin Opliger - the Special Projects Leader for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

Erin discusses using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in San Bernardino's operations, including situational awareness, performance tracking, and public engagement. She highlights the collaboration with other entities and utilizing software tools like Intterra for data visualization and analysis, emphasizing how software tools improve fire department efficiency and effectiveness.

She also discusses the challenges San Bernardino faces, such as the diverse geographical area and the need for community risk reduction. In sum, this conversation highlights the need for culture change and the adoption of technology in the fire service.

So click play now to find out what she has to share!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

1. 0:00 Kevin's intro
2. 0:52 Erin Opliger joins at the Intterra User Conference in Castle Rock
3. 2:16 What GIS means and how San Bernardino uses it
4. 4:19 Working with the sheriff, CONFIRE and the public through shared tools
5. 5:47 GIS as the fabric of everything
6. 6:23 Data sharing and getting the right information to the right people
7. 8:00 What Intterra is and how San Bernardino uses it
8. 9:57 Easy wins for departments from software they already have
9. 11:49 Challenges across a 20,000-square-mile county
10. 13:36 Community risk reduction and zero calls as success
11. 15:53 What's ahead in 2024 and what NERIS means
12. 17:53 Parting thoughts on data-driven decision making
13. 18:58 Culture change and getting crews to buy in
14. 20:36 Closing
15. 21:03 Outro

Questions answered in this episode

What is GIS and why does the fire service use it?

Erin Opliger describes GIS, geographic information systems, as a way to visualize data like a universal language. People can understand and digest information more easily when they can see it in a way that doesn't require any special knowledge to understand it.

Hear it at 2:16

How big is the area San Bernardino County Fire covers?

The county is about 20,000 square miles and the department covers about 19,000 of them. Erin Opliger says it has extreme diversity, including lakes, rivers, desert, mountain and metropolitan areas.

Hear it at 12:13

What is NERIS?

NERIS is the National Emergency Response Information System. Erin Opliger says it creates a data framework so fire departments can all speak the same language, and it sets data quality standards that the industry could use.

Hear it at 17:03

How does San Bernardino handle sharing sensitive incident data?

Data shared outward is filtered depending on the audience. The public may only need to see where something is, cooperators need to know who is responding, and internally the department needs the true details of an incident.

Hear it at 6:52

What does Erin Opliger say is needed to get firefighters to adopt new technology?

She says instead of being punitive about reports, get firefighters to see the benefit and how it will make their job easier. Create tools that are simple with low learning curves, and incorporate technology training early for new firefighters.

Hear it at 19:25

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 205 transcript

Mapping as a Superpower: GIS within Fire Service Operations in San Bernardino with Erin Opliger

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Erin Opliger

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting Podcast. Kevin Sofen here, where we cover all things related to the future of smart technology for first responders around the world. Please enjoy the show and let me know what you want to learn about next. Today, we talk about the role of geographic information systems, GIS, in enhancing public safety and firefighting operations with Erin Opliger, the special projects leader at San Bernardino County Fire Department. In this episode, Erin dives into how to leverage GIS in collaborative software efforts and how utilizing tools like Intterra for advanced data visualization and analysis are steering San Bernardino toward more efficient and effective emergency responses. This was recorded in person at the Intterra User Summit in February 2024 in Castle Rock, Colorado. Enjoy. We are here live at the Intterra User Conference sitting alongside Erin Opliger. Did I do it right?

[1:00] Erin Opliger: Yeah, you got it.

[1:01] Kevin Sofen: I nailed it. And it's a wonderful day here in Castle Rock, Colorado. How are you doing today?

[1:06] Erin Opliger: It's a beautiful day up here. It's sunny and the perfect temperature. Love being up here.

[1:11] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, when I got here from Chicago, I was like, gosh, every time I land in Colorado, it's like, maybe I should move here. It's pretty nice here.

[1:18] Erin Opliger: It is pretty nice. it's ironic that at home it's rainy and cloudy but up here it's sunny and beautiful.

[1:23] Kevin Sofen: And where is home for you?

[1:25] Erin Opliger: Home for me is Yucaipa. I live in Southern California. It's a little bit inland from LA for those of you who aren't aware of that. So I work for San Bernardino County so that's our area.

[1:37] Kevin Sofen: We've had a gentleman that goes by the name of Dan Munsey from San Bernardino on this podcast before.

[1:43] Erin Opliger: Yeah absolutely he's our fire chief.

[1:45] Kevin Sofen: Yeah he's frequented many times and I've had the fortune of working with him on the IAFC tech council work and I know him and others have told me about a lot of the work you're doing with GIS and we're here at the Intterra User Conference talking about tech and public safety and we just rattled off like 30 things we can talk about and I think where to start is how is Erin using different technologies within San Bernardino and maybe starting kind of like with GIS like what does GIS maybe mean in your terms and like how are you using GIS within San Bernardino's operations?

[2:16] Erin Opliger: So GIS stands for geographic information systems and it's a way to sort of visualize data in a way that in my opinion is sort of like a universal language. People can really understand and digest information a lot easier when they can see it and read it in a way that it doesn't require any knowledge to understand it. So for us, we're using GIS in a number of ways. the most important one internally. We're doing a lot for situational awareness, trying to make sure that we keep not only our firefighters, but also the public safe in instances where we can. Additionally, we're using it for performance tracking and try to create some of that efficiency in the way that we're doing and the way that we can improve our response times, especially on those high risk calls. And we're also doing a degree of public engagement and working on some transparency items so that we can share our information with the public and, you know, remain as relevant as possible. Some of the stuff that we're doing, we heavily use the Esri tools. We have a combination of dashboards for our chiefs to be able to see, to see what's happening, as well as some special surveys that are out there, both internally and externally. Internally, we have things such as like damage assessment when we have major incidents that happen. We have a hazard mitigation one, so that our guys, when they're going on a call, can see sort of they know if a building is in a bad shape and it links back to all of our cooperators so it's going back to you know building and safety it's going back to the sheriff's department and it's creating an automated notification system so that we can sort of have that follow-up and tracking. We also have something for our COAST team which is our community outreach and support team and what they do is they do crisis interventions so when they get a call or we normally end up having a lot of law enforcement on it we can sort of mitigate that a little bit and bring out our team and we can do tracking on any of the engagement that we're having with those people. And if they're recurring or, you know, and get them the proper resources, rather than them having to go off to with law enforcement, they can get the proper help that they need. And on that we do a lot of collaboration with different entities. So in San Bernardino County, we are technically a special district. so we are not actually a county department, but we work very closely with the county GIS team, as well as the sheriff's department, specifically the sheriff's department on things like evacuations, the illegal cannabis grows, because we end up having a lot of safety issues when we do show up to things like that. And also homelessness and combating some of that because we do obviously get a lot of homeless fires and things like that. So and as well with CONFIRE, we're part of a regional dispatch center. And those are we work with all of our neighboring entities to develop tools that we can use across the entire county. Some other public engagement ones that we have, we have a fireworks reporting app, so a lot of people have, we have a lot of issues with illegal fireworks, especially around the holidays, and so the public can go on and report that, and then we get reports both to the fire department, the fire marshal's office, but also to law enforcement if needed. So there's a connection going on there, and we also use an application for our pre-planning, which is through First Due, and First Due has a Community Connect component where the public can go on and report their own information. So if they have a lockbox to be able to get in, or they have special medical needs, or they have whatever it is, they can report all of that in there and give the contact information so that when we're going on, we have that pre-plan information.

[5:47] Kevin Sofen: So GIS is kind of the fabric and framework of pretty much everything that you're working on.

[5:55] Erin Opliger: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, each one of these pieces, the beauty of it is that we have a number of applications that we can use for getting information, but they're all interoperable, and then at the same time you have a visual representation of all the data that's coming in. So it helps you be able to see what's going on, and of course there's definitely a delicate balance and having too much information, and so creating tools that are specific for specific things is really key so that you don't have too much information.

[6:23] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and with the whole visual representation and not overloading, you were talking earlier, we only have so much time and our brains are only so big, we can only handle so much information, but that not only visual representation, but then data sharing, whether it's data sharing within the department, data sharing when there is a collaborative response, or data sharing to the community at large, tell me more about how you approach data sharing and communicating the right information the right way and some of these tools that you're using within that.

[6:52] Erin Opliger: So some of that has restrictions on it. Obviously, you end up with some sensitive data sets and things of that nature. So when you are developing things that need to be shared out, you are making sure to limit it so it's somewhat filtered down data. So for example, the public may want to be able to just see where something is, but then and our cooperators need to know who all is responding to it, but then internally we need to know the true details of an incident or whatever it is. So we try to follow some of the industry data standards and things of that nature, but it really ends up coming up almost as a case-by-case basis where the sheriff has a need and we end up developing a solution together to collaborate and share that data as it comes along. I am a part of several different communities that I can get collaborative information. So there's like a data analysis group that I participate in, also Fire Scope and things like that. So it's nice to be able to tap into the community and share not only our solutions, but also, you know, get new ones from them. So not sure if I fully answered your question.

[7:54] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I mean, this is all just kind of talking and sharing the best ideas and practices about data sharing and that point. But then also, I mean, you mentioned other, you know, certain companies so far, like Esri and First Due, but I know, you know, we'd be remiss to not talk about what we're here today at this Intterra user conference. And it does seem like there are a lot of softwares, but they all do fairly different things. They are interoperable in different ways. From Intterra's standpoint, what is Intterra, in your words, and sort of how does San Bernardino utilize the Intterra software platform?

[8:27] Erin Opliger: So Intterra, to me, it's a beautiful representation of data to create that situational awareness. It has a whole plethora of different tools that are built into it. For me, I use a lot on the analytics side, and the chiefs absolutely love having the dashboard analytics side as well as the sit-stat monitor so that you can get a real quick snapshot of what's happening out there, what your resource drawdown looks like, and what incidents are going on, where our gaps in coverage are, things of that nature. But it has so many different applications and things that we may even be underutilizing, But we use it a lot in the wildland pre-planning arena, but there's also the ability to do pre-event planning. You know, if you have a big event coming up, they have a module built in for that if you need to get information for your 209 on an incident or for an FMAG. So it really has the whole suite of things that you could need on both the municipal side and a wildland side, and they just continue to adapt to the changing environment and create new tools. So we use it a lot for our situational awareness. And I'm also on an incident management team, and I actually use it more when I'm on an incident because there's a lot of, I can get the real-time virus flights through there, through the aircraft bucket, and you can see the NIFC data coming in real-time. So it's just got a whole suite of things that you can do with it. And it's definitely, for us, one of the ones that we've spent the most time making sure that our data coming out of it is really clean and really good.

[9:57] Kevin Sofen: It seems like one of my biggest takeaways. and being here at the user conferences, there's a very strong user base of Intterra users, but everyone's still not using it to the full potential. And I think a lot of times there are softwares that you're not using all the features. I mean, even just with the Microsoft Suite or even the Google Suite, there's so much in it. What are some areas of where do you think fire departments could better leverage some of these software tools in easy ways? You know, what are some, maybe some easy wins that you think maybe aren't as widely adopted? You know, whether it's with some of these tools like Intterra or Esri or even some of the free stuff that could help small, medium departments in some capacity.

[10:36] Erin Opliger: I think it's just right out the box. It gives you a nice, like I said, visual representation of your data. And even if you haven't been able to devote the staff time into making it clean and perfect, it gives you a quick snapshot of how you're doing performance-wise and what's happening around you. And in California, Intterra is integral to the way that the fire service provides, does what we do. And most of the departments are tapped in. So you actually are getting a lot of data sharing going on. So you can really see who's around you and what's going on. And they could just continue to advance that. So right now I know there's a lot of work being done to create that wildland pre-plan on a statewide level, as well as to merge together the EVAC data so that it's all sitting in one house. So, right out the box, you kind of get that, and especially in California with NG Scout, you can have access to the Intterra tools without having your agency, having an agency specific one. You can still get that situational awareness. You can still get that collaboration with your other departments around you. So you know, Intterra hosting NG Scout is, definitely makes a difference for the small department who maybe can't have it on their own.

[11:49] Kevin Sofen: And within, let's say, the San Bernardino complex or context story, what are some challenges that you're facing now, you know, I know San Bernardino in general is a massive footprint, I mean that alone is a challenge, but what are some of the challenges that San Bernardino faces and what are ways that some of these tools that you've talked about, have you addressed some of these challenges that you're looking at in 2024 and beyond?

[12:13] Erin Opliger: I think some of it's a problem that everybody has, I mean you really are trying to be on the forefront of preventing incidents. Our county is very diverse. The county itself is about 20,000 square miles, and we cover about 19,000 square miles of that. So we have an extreme diversity. We have lakes and rivers and desert and mountain and everything in between, metropolitan areas. So for us, we have a lot of hazards that happen in our county, and so we do our best to try to spend some of that time to assess some of those and maybe try to plan for it or pre-mitigate if possible, but you can't always plan for everything. But in our metro areas, you know, it's definitely spending more time looking at our at-risk populations and trying to develop programs around that so that we can better provide service before we're there on an emergency. Doing, putting in the work to try to prevent some of those large-scale problems that end up occurring. So I'd say that's something that is hugely important to us is really trying to get ahead of some of the things that happen and also, in our case, work really closely with all of our collaborators because we are a very diverse county with several jurisdictions and we all have to work together to make it work.

[13:36] Kevin Sofen: And the one thing I've heard Dan say, and it was actually quoted earlier in maybe a different context, one is if the fire truck has to leave the building, that's a sign that something went wrong or some capacity of the fire service in terms of the community risk reduction initiative, failed somewhere. By just the inherent nature of needing to respond. Granted, I know this is sort of maybe a different context, but fire departments are oftentimes valued at how many calls that they go to. I know that's sometimes how the funding is allocated. I've heard another friend, Stefan Truthän, talk about how could we look at turning safety as a KPI, where the idea is that zero calls and zero responses is actually a metric of success. But just kind of that idea of, because it's such a large area, and you've touched on it a little bit, but just the community risk reduction and public safety outreach, you mentioned that sort of response truck. What are some other sort of CRR, public safety-related initiatives that San Bernardino has in the works that goes to trying to prevent the disaster before it actually happens?

[14:41] Erin Opliger: Yeah, so Dan, yeah, that's a big thing that he wants to focus on. And that's definitely part of his leader's intent. and he likes to leverage some of the technology that's out there to better answer some of those questions and better apply those resources. And I think I'd agree with you on the sense that it would be better to see zero calls as really trying to be the standard. I mean, it's never really gonna be reality, but the less calls that we end up having, the better health and safety we have for our firefighters as well as for the public. And so, I mean, I think we are working a bit on that sort of paying a lot of attention to the WUI and doing some of that community risk reduction so that way we can provide some of that safety. We don't have a lot of tools out the box right this moment, but we are working a lot with our communities and our fire safe councils and stuff to start developing that out a bit more and really focus on those wildland pre-plans and which currently we are in a big collaborative wildland pre-plan initiative with in collaboration with our neighboring jurisdictions and CAL FIRE to provide that for our, because we have a very large wildland urban interface.

[15:52] Kevin Sofen: Yes. So we've covered a few different software tools that you're using, GIS, and I guess kind of open-endedly, like what's on tap for the rest of 2024? Like what do you, any sort of bigger initiatives, big or small or anything in particular that you're excited about that you're working on or involved with within San Bernardino or to stay that whole or anything else?

[16:13] Erin Opliger: I mean, I'm loving seeing the direction that the community is really going on that community risk reduction. I think it is becoming a big thing. I'm really excited to see what comes out from NERIS. I also do a lot of data analytics. So getting the next version of data management and being able to have a better collaboration of our data is something I'm really looking forward to seeing coming down the pipeline.

[16:37] Kevin Sofen: What is NERIS in your words? Like what, I think there are some people who are maybe a little confused on it and I think people do hear NFIRS, but then at times some people are like, well, I guess my only objective with NFIRS is just click the least amount of buttons to finish the report. But for those who maybe are still kind of on the fence of learning about it, like what's NERIS in your words, and how do you think NERIS is ultimately gonna help the fire service become more effective and more efficient?

[17:03] Erin Opliger: I think it's going to really streamline that interoperability between fire departments and that collaboration effort. NERIS itself is the National Emergency Response Information System and it's really creating a data framework for us to all be able to speak the same language. Sometimes between departments you end up having a little bit of difference in the way that you report data and it really is going to set the data quality standards that the industry could use a little bit of revamping on and I'm hoping to also take some of our reporting side for our guys and work on that change culture to show them how good data affects them in their day-to-day life and makes their job easier and can create more resilience and mitigate some of these issues that we end up having and be more prepared to respond effectively.

[17:53] Kevin Sofen: Well, and kudos to USFA and Dr. Lori and Theresa and Avram and Rebecca, who are all leading that. So thank you for doing that. And it seems like the noise is growing a little bit, so I think they might be joining here and a few, but to maybe have a final, I didn't prompt you with this before, but if you had a mic drop or a favorite quote or a question or a challenge or any sort of parting thoughts that you could leave us with here today, what would that be?

[18:19] Erin Opliger: I would like to see, yeah, I love seeing the industry start to really take this turn on data-driven decision-making and going a little bit away from the traditional standard. There's definitely no replacement for experience, but I think it can help with making effective decisions and really creating a more resilient fire department. And so I would love to see that. And then being able to see a department apply the proper resources to be able to accomplish and effectively implement some of these technologies would be something that I think is going to make a huge difference in the fire service delivery, fire and EMS, I should say, for the years to come.

[18:58] Kevin Sofen: Well said. And one thing that I know we didn't touch on but the kind of a second final kind of question or final mic drop is the culture change adoption piece you know and how do we not necessarily the whole carrot-and-stick debate but all these things sound great but we still need to kind of overcome the this is the way we've always done it. What are your thoughts in terms of how we need to get people to get fire service to want to embrace some of this change as opposed to feeling like they're begrudgingly having to do stuff?

[19:25] Erin Opliger: think that's just the major challenge across the entire nation is that how do you get the boot firemen to really want to buy into using this technology so it's not a glorified paperweight, you know, as well as seeing the benefit of it. So I really think it's going to come down to instead of it being sort of a punitive way of getting them to fill out those reports or use the data that you really get them to see the benefit of it and how it will make their job easier or make their life easier. And so creating these tools in the simplest fashion so that they actually... there isn't a high you know learning curve to being able to know how to use it is really important and so I think it's gonna come down to them actually wanting and see wanting to do it and then also see the benefits of how it can make their lives easier so.

[20:19] Kevin Sofen: Well said Erin.

[20:20] Erin Opliger: And I think it would be great to incorporate that probably as early training so when you're a brand new Pro firefighter, it should be something that you're, you know, learning and the next generation's carrying that into the future of the fire service.

[20:36] Kevin Sofen: Erin, I think we all need more Erin in our life to keep talking technology and change management and I can see why Chief Dan Munsey speaks so highly of you because you're saying all the right things and I appreciate all the work that you're doing at San Bernardino and hopefully this is not the first or last time that we're on the smart firefighting community talking shop, so.

[20:55] Erin Opliger: Absolutely, look forward to it.

[20:57] Kevin Sofen: Thanks, Erin. Well, have a good rest of your day and we'll talk soon.

[20:59] Erin Opliger: You as well.

[21:03] Kevin Sofen: Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Firefighting podcast today. If you enjoyed what you heard and got any value, please drop us a rating, leave us a comment or reach out to us on social media. Have a great day. And together we can advance the future of smart firefighting.