This is Kris Eriksen, NIMO PIO. I wanted to pass along some information from a NIFC webinar I was involved in today; many of you may not have seen it as it was aimed at PAO's and PIO's. I have been working with Ben Butler and his group at NIFC for almost 2 years on a fire information app called Wildfires Near Me, which was announced for the first time today on the NEW PIO TECH TOOLS webinar! We're pretty excited about it and hope it will be very useful to the public.
The app is based on a similar tool I was introduced to while on the 2014 Bushfire Study Tour of Australia and New Zealand and it focuses on a largely untapped niche - information about new and emerging fires. It's a tool that takes official fire information downloaded directly from dispatch immediately upon being reported, and merges it with twitter discussions filtered to only those about new and emerging fires. It incorporates social media allowing users to tweet or post to facebook without having to leave the app and includes the ability to create a personalized stream of information or alerts about fires near specific locations via texts or emails.
If you'd like a copy of my and Ben's PPT on just Wildfires Near Me with speaker notes from Feb 17, 2016, go here to download:
Wildfires Near MeIf you'd like to play with the Wildfires Near me tool on the web, go here:
http://www.wildfiresnearme.wfmrda.com/You can also watch the compete Feb 17th, PIO TECH TOOLS webinar recording, which will be located (soon) on the PIO Bulletin Board under
PIO training.
The Wildfires Near Me tool will continue to be under construction (but useable!) until May 6 when it will move from Alpha phase to Beta, and remain untouched for the 2016 fire season. Feel free to play with the tool and use the feedback form to let us know what you think or changes you'd like to see. But since it will be "tweeked" more between now and May, we encourage you to join us for the launch of the final beta version on May 6th. You can register for the webinar here:
Wildfires Near Me Official Launch Webinar
May 6, 2016
12 noon Mountain time
Webinar registration:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7799720355545609730
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