Innovative Wildfire Management Systems for Proactive Public Safety

Steve Monaghan, Agency Director, Information & General Services at Nevada County CA

Steve Monaghan, Agency Director, Information & General Services at Nevada County CA

The Sierra Nevada mountain range extends 250 miles from the Mojave Desert in Southern California to the Cascades in Oregon. Along the way, the densely forested range goes through rural Nevada County, California, about an hour’s drive northeast of the state’s capital, Sacramento. Residents live with the constant peril of wildfire, as 92 percent of the county’s 56,000 households are in high or very high wildfire severity zones, known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where natural forests meet residential areas. CAL FIRE, the state’s lead fire agency, has a local air attack base at the county’s airport. The frequent sounds of CAL FIRE’s “spotter” plane spark anxiety across the young and the old due to the signal of a potential wildfire nearby.

In 1989, Nevada County’s 49er Fire set records with over 350 homes lost and launched a new era for California forest management, firefighting tactics, and residential defensible space requirements. Since then, forests have become denser and overgrown, prolonged droughts dried vegetation, bark beetle infestations killed many trees, and an ever-growing number of new homes have been built in the WUI. These challenges complicate the job of Nevada County’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) and local first responders to protect the community they love.

In response to the increasing risk of wildfire, Nevada County has implemented a variety of cutting-edge technology systems grouped into FEMA’s four-quadrant emergency management framework.

In the mitigation area, the county’s GIS team developed a mobile app for staff to identify, geolocate, capture pictures of, and log hazardous trees for removal, an essential requirement for state and federal mitigation grant programs. County defensible space inspectors ensure residents have the required 100 feet of vegetation clearance around their homes. They use tablets and a mobile application to update inspection case files. On the backend, the system tracks the cases and issues fines and notices.

Public education and outreach are key to emergency preparedness. The county’s award-winning “Ready Nevada County” public dashboard integrates data from various third-party "mashups." The novel and innovative AI/ML-driven evacuation pre-planner helps residents understand evacuation times based on their departure during hypothetical scenarios, encouraging early evacuation and showcasing the exponential difference in time to get out if they wait too long. Ladris, a local company that offered the county its advanced technology to assist the community with wildfire risks, developed this solution. Emergency managers can use a robust real-time solution during live events to plan evacuations and assess traffic impacts based on wildfire risk, a strategy implemented by numerous other counties and cities.

“In response to the increasing risk of wildfire, Nevada County has implemented a variety of cutting-edge technology systems grouped into FEMA’s four-quadrant emergency management framework.”

When a wildfire occurs, a system called Zonehaven helps select evacuation zones, which are pre-defined geographic neighborhood areas optimally created for size and evacuation egress efficiency. Upon zone identification, its color changes on an online map available to the general public via the Ready Nevada County dashboard. The different colors for zone statuses indicate normal, warning, or mandatory evacuation. It also displays locations for human and animal shelters and key-activated community resources. The emergency operations team then sends an alert via CodeRED to the residents in the zone. CodeRED requires residents to sign up for the service while the county's partnership with their local 211 call center operators drives outreach and relevant assistance.

All the zones are loaded into the CodeRED system so operators can seamlessly designate the zone(s) and template messages. The system then sends out phone, email, and text alerts as well as Text Telephone (TTL) for hearing-impaired residents. Nevada County is a high tourist destination with thousands of visitors recreating in local historic Gold Rush-era towns, the Tahoe forest, and the many local trails. To reach these visitors, CodeRED messages to cell phones connected to a network tower covering an impacted zone, with the assistance of the Federal Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system.

The Sheriff’s Office leverages several technologies to perform the physical neighborhood evacuation. First, sheriff and local police vehicles use a Hi-Low siren to broadcast signals, the siren version European police use. It is distinctively different from US sirens and notifies residents of an ongoing evacuation as they drive through the neighborhoods. This office also employs a Search and Rescue (SAR) team to perform door-to-door checks, ensure complete escape, and assist residents with functional needs. SAR team members utilize the SAR-TOPO application that geocodes each home they visit, logging if the residents have left or are sheltering in place. The emergency operations center (EOC) staff in the command center can watch the consolidated map in real-time, monitoring the status as the SAR teams work through neighborhoods.

Telecommunications can be challenging in rural Nevada County, with tall trees, mountains, and deep river valleys. Wildfires frequently start in remote areas where there is no phone, data, or cellphone service whatsoever. To overcome these limitations, the communications platform SatRunner, a mobile and self-contained system, mounts on the back of a vehicle and uses a satellite communications link to create a ½ mile cellphone “bubble” and offer a 1,000-foot WIFI bubble. Together, they enable SAR and first responder teams to have quality phone and data service in the field.

The EOC has embraced virtual operations too. Previously, dozens of people would respond to the physical EOC to resolve an incident. During the county’s COVID response requiring social distancing, the EOC started using Microsoft Teams and created a site for each incident and Incident Command Structure (ICS) in Teams channels. The system works very well, such that during the last several EOC Team activations, the virtual EOC has been utilized in addition to the traditional onsite staffing, only requiring ICS section leads to work physically in the EOC. This has increased the EOC team’s efficiency, member accessibility, staffing agility, and cross-section visibility.