The value of communication networks in a public safety environment

COMMS CONNECT 2014COMMS CONNECT 2014

COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS IN A PUBLIC SAFETY ENVIRONMENT

Shane Fitzsimmons AFSM | Commissioner | NSW Rural Fire Service

At a glance

› The world’s largest volunteer fire service

› More than 70,000 members

› Providing fire and emergency services to approximately

95% of the geography of NSW

› Our vision and mission:› To provide a world standard of excellence in the provision of a › To provide a world standard of excellence in the provision of a

community-based fire and emergency service

› To protect the community and our environment we will minimise the

impact of fire and other emergencies by providing the highest

standards of training, community education, prevention and

operational capability

What we do

Our members provide fire and emergency services such as:

› Bush and grass fires

› Structure fires

› Motor vehicle accidents

›

›

› Support to flood and storm operations

› Assistance with search and rescue operations

› Community First Response

More than 20,000 incidents per year

Coordinated firefighting

•One Incident Management Team per incident

•One Incident Controller

•NSW RFS lead combat agency for major bush fire incidents

•Regardless of public or private land•Regardless of public or private land

•Other agencies are a part of the IMT

•Agencies use the NSW RFS Incident Control Online (ICON) system

•NSW RFS website the ‘single source’ of online information on bush fires

Technology informing decisions








Technology informing the community



The fires of 2013

› 7 to 21 January 2013

› Catastrophic fire danger ratings in large population

centres for the first time

› More than a million telephone warnings sent

› 512 bush and grass fires

› 17 to 26 October 2013› 17 to 26 October 2013

› Large and damaging fires in areas including Blue

Mountains and Hawkesbury, Southern Highlands,

Port Stephens, Central Coast

› More than 200 properties destroyed

› State of Emergency 20-30 October

› October fires video

13-26 October 2013

Public Information7-21 January 13-26 October

Emergency Alert 99 campaigns (of which 43 used location based function)

72 campaigns418,247 messages sent

NSW RFS website8.7 million page views

5.7m visitors14.1m page views

NSW RFS Facebook 27.6 million impressions 108.4m impressions

NSW RFS Twitter 15.5 million impressions 24.2m impressions

Bush Fire Information Line

Over 26,300 calls received of which 12,600 taken by operators

46,545 calls to BFIL18,041 of these answered by BFIL operators

Fires Near Me 150,000 new downloads80,000 fire searches per hour at peak

188,000 new downloads219,000 fire searches per hour at peak

Coordinated messaging

Coordinated messaging

Social Media - how we use it

CorporatePreparation

Emergency

Media

Emergency Information

Intelligence

NSW RFS and social media

› 2008 NSW RFS establishes social media channels

› 2009 Victorian bush fires

› 2010 Social media policy developed

› 2011 Social media policy introduced

› 2013 January and October bush fires

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

'Fans'

Social media and intelligence

The unexpected issues...

Facebook user

I can see flames a kilometre away, what should we do? There’s no away, what should we do? There’s no fire engines here, no one to ask.

The unexpected issues…




Going global

Challenges

› Social media – finding the "needle in the

haystack"

› Keeping pace with technology

› Using technology as an enabler - not the driver

› Reliance on people in the decision making › Reliance on people in the decision making

process

› Retention of data

› Managing community expectations

Where to from here?

› TOILET PAPER AD

Challenges

Abernethy – 2002Photo by Darren Pateman

Date post:	22-Nov-2014
Category:	Technology
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