Tag: firefighters

Artificial Intelligence Protects First Responders, How Birth Control Is Stopping the Spread of Disease and More

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This NASA-Developed A.I. Could Help Save Firefighters’ Lives, Smithsonian Magazine
Disorienting scenes where a single move can be deadly is a common experience for both space rovers and firefighters. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built an artificial intelligence system for navigating unfamiliar landscapes, is sharing its technology with fire departments — warning first responders about hazards they might not notice in the smoke and flames.

Man v. Rat: Could the Long War Soon Be Over? The Guardian
A New York City subway rat carries a host of dangerous contagions, and its reproductive capacity — up to 15,000 offspring in a year — spread disease through city sewers and alleyways. A biotech startup in Flagstaff, Ariz., has developed a humane way to deal with Gotham’s infestation where rat poison has failed: birth control.
Generational Poverty: Trying to Solve Philly’s Most Enduring Problem, Philadelphia Magazine
Can Mattie McQueen, an unemployed 52-year-old raising three grandchildren in a largely unfurnished apartment, escape the destitution that’s dogged her ancestors since the postbellum years? One Philadelphia nonprofit is using what’s being called a “two- generation” model to assuage her financial stresses to make space for the children’s learning.
 

The Group That’s the Future of the Minneapolis Firehouse

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While news of unemployment continues to make headlines nationwide, one state is facing the problem of having  job openings, but not enough people to fill them.
The Minnesota fire and police departments are scrambling to find a solution to the more than 1,200 firefighters and police officers statewide who are now entering the golden years of retirement. In Minneapolis alone, 40 officers and seven firefighters have called it quits.
To tap into the next generation of public service, the metro fire department is launching a recruiting program for inner-city teens, beginning in a classroom at Roosevelt High School.
“We need to start earlier and basing our recruitment and meet development of growing our own firefighters and that’s what led to this,” says Minneapolis Fire Chief John Frutel.
In an effort to attract potential firefighters as they graduate and enter the workforce, the classes are offered to seniors. Students learn procedures and then perform them, like learning how to take a pulse or temperature or how to stabilize someone who is sick in an emergency response, for example.

But equally important is diversifying Minneapolis’s department, as only a third of the firefighters are people of color, local ABC affiliate KAALtv reports. At Roosevelt, 75 percent of the students are minorities, which is why it’s the perfect locale to run the pilot program.

“They wanted to take our students, which have always been a rich mix of ethnicities, and use their linguistic and cultural skills to diversify the department,” says Kari Slade with Roosevelt High School.

The fire department spent $50,000 on the program, but the benefit outweighs the cost. Regardless of how many students choose to become firefighters, they receive training that could serve a potential career as a paramedic, nurse or doctor. Students can also receive college credit for class and take a test to become a certified emergency medical responder.

“If we can get people to take as much education as we can, I think we’re all better off,” paramedic Kai Hjermstad says.

MORE: When America’s Heroes Can’t Find Employment, This Program Trains Them to be Wilderness Firefighters

When Flames Threaten, Big Data Predicts Where Wildfire Will Spread Next

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As wildfires continue to grip much of Northern California and southern Oregon, firefighters are scrambling to contain the flames while officials are organizing evacuations.
Wildfires spread fast, and a change of wind can make it difficult to track where the flames are moving, which is why computer scientists at the University of San Diego are tapping big data to help forecast the path of destruction in real time.
WIFIRE, a cyber infrastructure system, uses weather sensors and satellite images to analyze the progress of a wildfire and where it’s likely to move in real-time — helping firefighters to make better decisions, according to InformationWeek.
Though WIFIRE is still being developed, the goal is to scale a version that could be used elsewhere in the country where communities are dealing with the natural disaster. In fact, recent reports have found wildfires are growing more intense and more destructive across the western United States.

“Imagine that you could have a detailed model of a wildfire path and you could actually compute the progress of the flames faster than real time and provide advanced warning to the first responders,” says Larry Smarr, a computer scientist with the California Institute for Telecommunication and Information Technology.

This type of technology is precisely what could help reduce the financial toll a wildfire takes on a community after the ashes have settled. For example, the 2003 Cedar Fire in Southern California, the largest in the state’s history, left an estimated $2 billion worth of damages.

Though it’s currently a local project in San Diego, some pilot applications are currently available, according to Ilkay Altintas, director for the Scientific Workflow Automation Technologies Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, who is heading the project.

Scientists are planning to make WIFIRE  available to users through a web interface with real-time alerts sent to receivers before, during and after a fire. The potential would give authorities a leg up on organizing evacuations and putting emergency responders in place to prevent the spread of fires similar to the one blazing through Northern California.
MORE: You Can’t Fight Wildfires Without Water — and Colorado Is Thirsty

This Community Wants Veterans as Residents, So It’s Providing the Down Payment on New Houses

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In Braidwood, a town of about 5,000 people in northern Illinois, sit vacant dilapidated homes and empty lots full of weeds growing taller than fire hydrants. The roads are so rough and pothole-riddled that the post office threatened to cut off delivery.
Back in 2009, a developer started construction on a new housing subdivision — the Townes of Braidwood — but filed for bankruptcy before its completion. This left those who’d already purchased houses in a major jam, so the homeowners appealed to their town for help.
This year, the village of Braidwood finally purchased the vacant lots in the subdivision and came up with a plan to fill them and stabilize the neighborhood. And it’s a good one: They’re offering to supply the down payment on a home for any veteran or first responder that wants one.
Through the Illinois program Welcome Home Heroes, Braidwood will give veterans who want to buy a lot in the subdivision a $10,000 state-funded grant, and any firefighters, police officers, or other first responders will be provided a $7,000 grant. According to Jessica Bourque of the Morris Daily Herald, all veterans in Illinois can receive an $18,000 grant to be put toward housing on top of the $10,000 that Braidwood is offering.
Restoration America, a nonprofit that helps revitalize abandoned properties, will build 35 new houses in the subdivision that will first be offered to veterans and emergency responders, though anyone can purchase them.
Braidwood Mayor Bill Rulien told Bourque, “Veterans, as a group, are people that are good at volunteering, that are good at teamwork, that will help their neighbors. They are people you want in your community.”
Braidwood is located 18 miles south of Joliet, Illinois, where the new Edward Hines Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic has just been completed. Charles Konkus of Restoration America told Bourque, “Our goal here is to get veterans into new housing and have them serviced by the new veterans hospital in Joliet.”
Rulien and Konkus will visit nearby veterans events in the coming months to let former soldiers know about the housing available to them. And with any luck, the once-beleaguered Townes of Braidwood will become a great place to live in.
 

When America’s Heroes Can’t Find Employment, This Program Trains Them to be Wilderness Firefighters

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After serving in the military, many veterans can use three things: a job, fellow service members to talk to about their experiences, and some time spent in nature to decompress. The Veterans Fire Corps (VFC) provides all this and more.
Stephen Cooper, an Air Force veteran now doing logging work with the Fire Corps in the San Juan National Forest of western Colorado, told Jim Mimiaga of the Cortez Journal, “I was slipping, not doing well in school, abusing alcohol, basically not adjusting.” Then he joined VFC. “It changed my life and helped me get back on track. Now I’m a supervisor for other veterans that had the same issues I had, and I’m in my final semester at Fort Lewis College.”
The veterans train in all aspects of forestry and engage in fire mitigation, thinning trees to prevent forest fires. They also train as wilderness firefighters, a career that many of them pursue after their stints in the corps.
Cooper said the structure of the program and the physical outdoor work helps former soldiers find their way after serving in war. “It is therapeutic for veterans, many who are disabled and have witnessed horrific things in war,” Cooper said. “When we get out of the military, what’s missing is other vets to talk to. Civilians don’t understand what we’ve been through, and it can lead to more suffering in the form of isolation, depression and alcohol abuse.”
Veteran Ross Schumaker writes on the VFC website, “With the combination of all the classes, contacts, and me being a badass, I have landed a job on a fire engine for the upcoming season and plan on making wildland firefighting my career.”
MORE: Believe it Or Not, This Vet Tells Fellow Service Members to Take A Hike
 

This California City Is Staffing A Firehouse with A Different Kind of Life-Saver

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As the need for health care services continues to grow across the country, a small California city is rethinking where residents can seek out treatment without worrying about long lines or costly hospital bills.
Government officials in Hayward, Calif. and Alameda County have begun construction on a newfangled fire station that will not only address home emergencies, but medical concerns as well. The Firehouse Clinic combines a local firehouse with a stand alone health clinic, creating cost-effective access to primary and emergency care for local residents, City Lab reports.
The new care center is part of a larger plan created by Alameda officials to build similar health portals within its 150 square-miles within the county. The project, which began in 2012, identified 14 sites within seven jurisdictions that could potentially serve as an alternative health care center.
Kyle Elliot, an architect behind the design and partner at WRNS Studio in San Francisco, explains how the idea stems from the reputation of firefighters, who are often entrusted in communities.

“There’s an EMT on site, typically, in a fire house. It makes a good symbiotic relationship to place a clinic,” Elliot said. 

The firm designed a prototype for Hayward, free of charge, in partnership with Public Architecture, a firm focused on social design. The team also collaborated with six California healthcare and emergency organizations to determine guidelines in creating accessible and reliable health care centers.

The location of the pilot clinic caters to an important part of Alameda County, serving a larger community of low-income and uninsured families in the Tennyson Corridor. Officials plan to encourage locals with limited healthcare benefits or little access to visit the 2,400-square-foot space before heading to the hospital, for both emergency and preventative care.

More than 5,000 patients are expected through the door during the first two years, according to Alameda County Health Care Services Agency. To serve the influx of patients, the facility will house 7 exam rooms, staff will extend clinic hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and guarantee appointments within 72 hours of a request.

“Firefighters traditionally have a great relationship within the community. The trust and respect we have is incredible, said Melinda Drayton, battalion chief at Oakland Fire Department. “The familiarity is there for them to come and get the care they so desperately need without having to use the 911 system.”

MORE: Extreme Makeover: Fire Hydrant Edition

Watch These Amazing Firefighters Lift a Truck to Save an 86-Year-Old Man

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There’s so much to be said about the strength of firefighters. As the Huffington Post reports, a group of first responders saved the life of a Fairfield, Connecticut man who was pinned between his pickup truck and his garage.
According to reports, 86-year-old Franc Us was stuck for two hours in his garage before his cries for help were heard by his neighbors and notified the authorities. An emergency response team of about seven firefighters, paramedics and police showed up.
MORE: How Google Glass Can Fight Fires
As you can see in footage below caught by DoingIT Local.com, the team decided that the best way to free the man was by simply lifting the truck with their bare hands — no fancy equipment necessary. The man was taken to the hospital for his injuries and has reportedly been listed in critical condition.
According to a press release from the Fairfield Fire Department, the team contemplated “… multiple options… to free the trapped elderly man, but it was low-tech brute strength teamwork with the assistance of on scene Police officers that helped free the patient.”
Clearly the firefighters’ skills go way beyond putting out hot flames.
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How Google Glass Can Fight Fires

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For firefighters on the front lines, time is always of the essence. With that in mind, Patrick Jackson, a firefighter and self-taught programmer from Rocky Mount, N.C., has designed an application for Google Glass that can feed first-responders the information they need to quickly and effectively assess the scene of a fire or accident, without needing to use another device, such as a smartphone or radio. “I’ll hear a little notification and can look up into the top corner of my vision and see a map of where [the fire] is,” Jackson told CNN about his program. “I see the location of the incident and what type of call it is.”
The first iteration of Jackson’s app performs minor tasks, such as receiving dispatch messages, identifying nearby hydrants or mapping the location of incidents. But Jackson doesn’t plan on stopping there. He’s working on adding even more data in the near future, such as the ability to access buildings’ blueprints, contact info for owners and specs of vehicles. And while Google Glass isn’t yet compatible with firefighting gear, small tweaks to the design of oxygen masks and helmets could allow responders to record video and take pictures with the device, which could be an important tool for investigations.
MORE: Why Has Google Started Hoarding Robots?
Jackson, who studied computer science before transferring to the University of North Carolina, Asheville, to attend the environmental management and policy program, is also the creator of the popular Android app Firefighter Log, which similarly pushes key information about emergency incidents directly to smartphones. To get his hands on the highly coveted Google Glass, Jackson entered Google’s IfIHadGlass competition, then raised money for the app’s development through Indiegogo. After all that work, the app is getting noticed, and Jackson hopes it will be available within the next six months (before Google Glass is even released to the public) in order to help firefighters across the country save more lives.
MORE: Google Creates a Better Way to Help You Find Your Local Lawmakers