By Don Oliver
for FirefighterNation.com

It has been said many times that information is power. This is never truer than when providing fire and rescue protection to a community. Many of today’s fire service leaders, both in uniform and in laboratory coats, are working to develop tools that help firefighters cope with the unique challenges of the modern fire service. The safety of response personnel is their number one priority.

Geographic information systems (GIS) allow you to identify and quantify community hazards and values at risk. In this article, I’ll introduce the elements of a GIS-based community fire risk and hazard assessment, and discuss how you can start using GIS in your risk assessment and preplanning.

Assessment Elements
Many studies have been published on the subject of fire risk and hazard modeling; however, little has been done to describe how GIS can assist in modeling the relationship between hazards, risks and values.
A GIS-based community fire risk and hazard assessment consists of four elements:

1. Identifying/classifying community hazards.
2. Identifying risk factors, potential and probability.
3. Identifying/classifying community assets/values.
4. Fusing all of the elements into a visual display of the existing hazards: their potential impact on values and the risk or likelihood of an unwanted event.

The result of the assessment enables fire officers to quickly see and understand community values at risk. Plans can then be developed with specific actions targeting the highest-priority fire protection and life safety problems.

Read the full feature on FirefighterNation.com.