Geovisualization for the Dutch fire brigade: a research about effective cartographic methods for assisting tactics choice and indoor deployments during building fires.

Abstract

An information driven approach is safer and more effective when fighting building fires. Indoor deployments in complex buildings pose extra risks to the firefighters, making it important to explore these environments when incidents happen. This research is aimed at finding effective cartographic methods to present these indoor environments. The main question is:

“What are effective cartographic methods for presenting building information for assisting the Dutch fire brigade in tactics choice and choice of indoor firefighting methods and navigation?”

Findings from cartographic literature were applied to the needs of the Dutch fire brigade. These needs were assessed from literature and interviews with firefighting experts. In order to find effective cartographic methods, four research questions were answered. First of all the general demands from the fire brigade were assessed. An operational information system should serve two main purposes: assistance during on-site and indoor exploration, and tracking fire expansion and personnel movement. In order to fulfil these purposes both 2D and 3D representations are required. Moreover, information dosage is important and minimal user interaction should be required. After this the user groups were identified and their specific information needs were assessed. This resulted in two end users: (head) officers and navigators. Officers and head officers are mainly interested in tactical information such as building complexity and the position of different units. Navigators currently do not exist, this is a new function proposed in this research. Their main task would be to accompany the attack team and provide them with operational information within their own deployment area.

Finally findings were combined to create mockups of cartographic visualizations. A novel mapping interface design was developed called ToggleMaps. This interface has a main mapping pane and a reference pane with either 2D or 3D building representations. This allows the user to bring 3D information into 2D perspective and vice versa. The visualizations were tested on-site by describing a fictional fire scenario to firefighters. They were asked to compose a deployment plan using the ToggleMaps