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

As someone who builds telecommunications systems for first responders, I'm not convinced that a chat service, and online technology is better than narrowband 2-way radio, and paper maps.

These backcountry places often have no cell service, and paper maps don't have technical difficulties - and are easy/cheap to duplicate and hand out, in addition to being naturally rugged. So this means, expensive non-terrestrial communications, and expensive ruggedized devices.

While this is purportedly the problem firstnet is supposed to solve, I'm skeptical that it will solve it, or that the other issues (technical and otherwise) blocking adoption will be overcome.

I'm not involved in firefighting, I just spend a lot of time with maps planning out hikes:

I find that paper maps are dramatically better for me than anything on a screen, simply because they can be so much bigger and higher resolution at the same time. It is far easier to get a feel for an area on a table-top sized map printed at high PPI than on my 4K 27" monitors.

As for rapidly tracking the fire perimeters: Despite what the original article says, this mapping process is already happening. You can see the very outlines updated daily, with lots of fine detail, on inciweb.

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

So, ATAK already does this with pretty good success [0] but it generally works best with full connectivity.

You can deploy it over mesh technology for places that don't have Internet connectivity, and then backhaul the data to a monitoring center.

Of course it has those LEO/MIL ties which might really be holding it back.

0. https://www.govtech.com/em/safety/Corona-Fire-Department-Enh...

As someone who has helped with a fair share of controlled burns... yes: two-way radios on a repeater with backup batteries is excellent.

Any leftover budget is better spent on preventative measures, like clearing brush or controlled burns, not iPads.