Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

As someone who builds telecommunications systems for first responders, I&#x27;m not convinced that a chat service, and online technology is <i>better</i> than narrowband 2-way radio, and paper maps.<p>These backcountry places often have no cell service, and paper maps don&#x27;t have technical difficulties - and are easy&#x2F;cheap to duplicate and hand out, in addition to being naturally rugged. So this means, expensive non-terrestrial communications, and expensive ruggedized devices.<p>While this is purportedly the problem firstnet is supposed to solve, I&#x27;m skeptical that it will solve it, or that the other issues (technical and otherwise) blocking adoption will be overcome.

I really hate seeing articles like these. There are many reasons why groups may not choose to participate in the endless technology death march that is updates and instability.<p>Is the new fancy tool reliable? Does it truly fit into its adopter&#x27;s workflow? Is it faster and simpler and more reliable than existing tech? Or is it just shiny and backed by some idiot VC and they&#x27;re trying to push adoption prematurely?<p>This idea that its bad that something or someone isn&#x27;t high-tech needs to die.

I want to take whoever wrote this and throw 40lbs of gear on their back (which is light, but that&#x27;s just so they don&#x27;t fully break on the trip) and have them go hump with me it over the roughest imaginable terrain and let them carry all the tech and batteries they want to their heart&#x27;s content while we go cut fire lines. After they see how useless and unnecessary all that crap is, and how it goes tits up from being dropped&#x2F;smashed&#x2F;heated, and how unnecessary it is to do the job they need to do, I&#x27;d love to see them pack up their rucksack for the next trip. I&#x27;ll bet a LOT of money they don&#x27;t take any of it.<p>Firefighters don&#x27;t need a fucking ipad to cut lines. They need a pickaxe, chainsaws, shovels, etc.<p>Technology in this type of application is almost never more efficient or better than existing methods, but it gets used when it reduces training costs enough to be deployed.<p>I worked EMS. If I needed to find a house fast and reliably, I&#x27;ll use the custom fire department&#x27;s map binder over any technology solution you can come up with any day and it will be superior in essentially every way.

Flashpoint for paper is 450°F. My tablet shuts down if I take it for an afternoon at the beach and forget to keep it under the umbrella.<p>They aren’t stuck in the past. None of the solutions presented work reliably under extreme conditions so far.

As someone who has helped with a fair share of controlled burns... yes: two-way radios on a repeater with backup batteries is excellent.<p>Any leftover budget is better spent on preventative measures, like clearing brush or controlled burns, not iPads.

Okay, so after 100s of millions of dollars we&#x27;ll have:<p>Certified intrinsically safe (why not?) and fire resistant tablets with bluetooth and cell radios. We&#x27;ll pay verizon to put up towers in the middle of nowhere. We&#x27;ll redesign gloves to be touch sensitive. Redesign helmets to have bluetooth and speakers. Custom software all round. Etc.<p>After all said and done, we&#x27;ll realize walkie talkies and paper maps are more reliable.

In emergency situations, having gear with as close to 100% uptime and 100% reliability as possible far outweighs something new and fancy that gets stuck on an update, license issue or needs a reboot.<p>People who dont risk their lives trying to save others in real, mortal danger, truly need to stop thinking their opinion holds weight in these situations.

Firefighter works 24 hour shift, iPad battery dies after 18

Clearly, Firefighters are suffering from a critical lack of Cisco WebEx.

It seems that the less there is something that can break in a disaster response situation, the better.

I’m a bush fire fighter in Australia. We do make use of technology and we’re bringing more in but reliability and dependability is _so critical_.<p>All of my brigades trucks have iPads which are useful for accessing maps, running collaborative fireground apps like collector, firemapper or rfsBuddy, etc. All of these things are “nice to have” though. We don’t rely on it for anything we must have, because it fails from time to time.<p>We use apps like Rover and Bart to manage call outs. They’re great because we can see who’s responding, how far away they are, etc. We also all carry ancient pagers because they’re bulletproof and mobile phones aren’t. They’re served by a hardened transmission network where every tower has backup power in case the grid goes down.<p>Tech is great but in extreme environments like a wildfire I want to have a paper map with me and I want to know how to use it. Just in case.

Given the other thread currently on hn front page about how someone died when a hospital system was taken over by ransomware...<p>Paper maps and walkie talkies might be a good thing.

So, ATAK already does this with pretty good success [0] but it generally works best with full connectivity.<p>You can deploy it over mesh technology for places that don&#x27;t have Internet connectivity, and then backhaul the data to a monitoring center.<p>Of course it has those LEO&#x2F;MIL ties which might really be holding it back.<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govtech.com&#x2F;em&#x2F;safety&#x2F;Corona-Fire-Department-Enhances-Situational-Awareness-with-ATAK.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.govtech.com&#x2F;em&#x2F;safety&#x2F;Corona-Fire-Department-Enh...</a>

yeah none of my tech works properly in an emergency. honestly, everyone should have analog walkie talkies for when the cell network gets congested

I hope not to trivialize things too much, but firefighting almost seems like a RTS game, especially if one can get drones&#x2F;satellite&#x2F;etc to provide real time updates to the &quot;game map&quot;.<p>Even if there is the command chain that disrupts direct communication with your &quot;units&quot;, the communication down the chain could probably be automated from the interface.

FF&#x2F;EMT here. Love our radios. Super reliable. All the data stuff is crap. Our terminals and mapping are always losing connections. Same with paper maps. We still have big ones on our wall in the bay. Mandatory to look at it before we roll - we’ve added layers for hydrants and landing zones, etc. Best fire apparatus still have manual valves. All the electric and pneumatic stuff fails at the worst of time’s.<p>I do REALLY miss Nextel phone to phone though. That stuff was super useful.<p>Don’t get me wrong. I love tech. Retired Microsoft. Always have to have the latest. Apple Watch 6 on order. Can’t wait for Quest 2... but not on the foreground.<p>I do miss Nextel though. Did I mention that? Oh. And the InReach (and PLB) stuff is awesome for back country work.

Another &quot;boeing still uses floppy disk&quot; article, but this one reads like an ad for the company mentioned.<p>They answers their own question:<p><i>Emergency response units talked by two-way radio and sent each other text messages with photos of paper maps, said Kenneth Dueker, the director of Palo Alto’s office of emergency services. “Here we are right in the middle of Silicon Valley,” Dueker said. “Why am I using paper and pencil and a two-way radio when I should be using geospatial tools? It’s very 1920s, frankly.”</i><p>and few paragraphs later:<p><i>&quot;Glitches in software and outdated maps have been reported in the warning systems used to alert people in the path of the flames during several major fires in the last year.&quot;</i>

For industrial firefighting I was impressed with the frequent ongoing innovation seen in decades of print volumes of trade publication Industrial Fire World.<p>Mostly non-college people with more worthwhile creativity in their field than typical research PhD&#x27;s in their typical pursuits, too.<p>Industrial disaster is a lot different than wildfires in nature or a suburban environment, even though many _suburbs_ have grown up around industrial facilities.<p>Seems like there could still be a good benefit from more cross-pollination between those most dedicated to saving lives in either situation.

In addition to all the reliability &amp; usability concerns others have pointed out, don&#x27;t forget the time when Verizon enforced data caps during the Mendocino fire:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;22&#x2F;640815074&#x2F;verizon-throttled-firefighters-data-as-mendocino-wildfire-raged-fire-chief-says" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;22&#x2F;640815074&#x2F;verizon-throttled-f...</a>

&gt; firefighting tech is stuck in the past<p>Utterly not my experience. I was heavily involved on the tech side of firefighting in Victoria, Australia for several years almost two decades ago. It was possibly the most tech-forward set of projects I’ve ever been involved in.<p>It was also probably the most interesting stuff I’ve worked on in my career.

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What do the military use?<p>Should it not just be very similar to them?