But what about the areas that don’t have an address to be entered?
For Seminole County, Fla. — home to nearly 140 miles of trails and over 7,000 acres of wilderness areas — this presented a serious and growing concern. Calls for assistance on trails and in preserved wilderness areas have increased steadily over the past three years, with more residents gravitating toward the outdoors since the COVID-19 pandemic. Growing visitor attendance has also added extra response complexity, with many callers being unfamiliar with the area where they need assistance.
For trails response times, the average was two to three hours. Firefighters with the Seminole County Fire Department (SCFD), themselves hikers, bikers and hunters, were aware that apps existed to allow real-time tracking and reference without a cellular connection. But was there something for first responders to help significantly cut search and rescue times for trails response?
“We looked at a lot of private vendors, but ultimately found that creating an in-house resource was the best solution,” said Lt. Ed Castlen, whose experience working and running calls in Seminole County’s rural Geneva community made him a natural fit to help spearhead the SCFD trails app project. “Along with trails training, we’ve worked on a rescue marker sign project for our trails over the past decade, but there’s no guarantee that a hiker or biker will notice them or be near one when an emergency happens. We needed a customized and comprehensive tool that made use of the technology available to us.”
Working with Seminole County's GIS team after extensive research on capabilities already in the marketplace, the department began work on a proprietary internal app for trails response.
Drawing on firefighters’ knowledge and experience around trail and wilderness rescue, the department expanded the data available in the county’s existing trails GIS map to include important responder-specific information in addition to coordinates and U.S. National Grid references. Local trails and wilderness areas — official and unofficial — were meticulously cataloged with their location, difficulty, landmarks, trailheads and local nicknames all included for responders’ reference. Importantly, trail accessibility — by bike, utility task vehicle (UTV), or 4x4 truck — is noted along with the location of any access gates.
“With all that data, we can figure out exactly where someone is, how far we can drive, and how far we’re going to have to walk to get to them,” Castlen said.
Partner agencies — most notably the Florida Forest Service — were also key in providing a comprehensive amount of data to inform the app’s map functions.
The upgraded map was incorporated into a proprietary internal application that could be deployed to all department smartphones and tablets. With all data stored on-device, crews could reference all the data in the app in relation to their current location, even without cellular service, thanks to the devices’ built-in internal GPS.
Building an internal app was a tremendous cost savings for the department. Doing the same work with a vendor would have been financially unfeasible.
In order to test the trails app’s real-world use, Castlen and the team conducted an experiment during the department’s trails response training. A firefighter, playing the part of a citizen in distress, called 911 and relayed their location based on what was around them — exactly the information anyone else would have available.
From there, it was a race. Crews at the training would see if they could use the department's traditional methods to beat Castlen, who was using the new trails app, to the patient.
The response crew found the patient in just over an hour. Castlen was there, too, waiting for them. He had reached the patient in just 25 minutes.
With its usability proven, the trails app was deployed to all department devices for crews to use in responses. With the fully offline nature of the app, crews also had the ability to create waypoints, favorites and notes to tailor their individual unit’s map based on their first-due response area.
Since its initial implementation in the department, the trails app’s usage has expanded to maritime response for crews conducting rescue operations along the county’s lakes, rivers and waterways. Additionally, the county has begun to share access to the app with partner agencies, notably the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“This is an exceptional step forward in our Seminole County Fire Department’s response capability,” said Fire Chief Matt Kinley. “This tool allows our crews to dramatically increase their situational awareness and effectiveness when responding to calls on our trails and natural lands. Our average trails response times are now about 30 minutes. When we can find people faster, we can get to them faster, which means we can get them the help they need when they need it.”
The department plans to continue building new features into the app throughout the coming year. Notably, the addition of a “breadcrumb” feature for crews to accurately track their ingress routes even if they veer off-trail and a localized distance feature to measure between waypoints are on the way.
“More than anything, this underscores the value that can come from having great relationships with your peers in your agency or jurisdiction,” Castlen said. “This was the ultimate collaboration between tech-savvy and trail-savvy and that’s why it has been successful. None of this would have been possible if we hadn’t been able to work closely with everyone at the county. You just can’t overstate how much of a team effort this has been.”
Lakshmi Sankaran is the data compliance analyst at the Seminole County Fire Department. She worked firsthand with the SCFD team on this collaborative trails apps project. She believes the project's success came from the teamwork involved between the Planning Division, GIS and Information Technology, as well as the firefighters and command staff at the Fire Department.
