Fairfax, Va. – The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) today announced that it is partnering with Esri, a world leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, to geo-enable IAFC’s programs and applications in order to support the growing demands of first responders around the world.
The goal of the IAFC is to be an industry leader by providing the public-safety community and IAFC members the tools, technologies and solutions they need at a local level. Tommy Hicks, the IAFC’s assistant executive director, said, “Technology and information-gathering continues to expand exponentially around the world. Analyzed correctly, the fire and emergency service can leverage this data to improve service delivery, save lives and mitigate property loss at the local level.”
IAFC worked with Esri to create the National GIS Viewer, which provides first responders an introduction to geospatially enabled decision-support tools and illustrates how they can easily assist first responders in planning and daily operations.
Chris McIntosh, Esri’s director of Public Safety, said, “The first step was to develop an interactive information sharing environment using the Esri Story Map Journal template. This enables first responders to view comprehensive information products within their community. Accessing this data is challenging as the information resides in many different websites. Using the National GIS Viewer, a responder can aggregate that data and drill down to see important information about their community.”
The IAFC and Esri are already working toward a follow-on application that will focus more on community-based data to support decision-making.
Visit the National GIS Viewer at myhelix.org.
About the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC)
The IAFC represents the leadership of firefighters and emergency responders worldwide. IAFC members are the world's leading experts in firefighting, emergency medical services, terrorism response, hazardous materials spills, natural disasters, search and rescue, and public safety legislation. Since 1873, the IAFC has provided a forum for its members to exchange ideas, develop professionally and uncover the latest products and services available to first responders.
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Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, Esri software is used in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.
Jim Philipps | IAFC Assistant Director, Strategic Communications
703-537-4829 | jphilipps@iafc.org