Bushfire Connect presentation to the OpenGeospatial Consoritum's Disaster Management Working Group, Sydney, 1 December 2010

1. BUSHFIRE CONNECT
Leveraging Citizen Sensors
and Spatial Information
Standards for Australian
Bushfire Management
MAURITS VAN DER VLUGT
Spatial Information strategist

2. OVERVIEW
Background
Why Bushfire Connect?
What does it do?
Status
Q&A

7. 7 FEB 2009 - BLACK SATURDAY
Worst Bushfires in State of Victoria
Burnt1 Million Football Fields
Displaced 7,500 people
2000 houses lost
173 dead

8. INFORMATION BREAKDOWN
Official Agencies & Emergency Services
 Slow & Overwhelmed
 000 ( ~911) overloaded
No alternative sources
 Rumours & Misinformation
Evacuations: too late and misdirected.

9. COMMUNITY NEED
Grass roots community reporting
 Fast, localised, community driven
Integration with Official Sources
 Integrate with agency feeds
 Inform Emergency Services (add to COP)
 Crisis Mapping 2.0!

11. ENTER USHAHIDI…
 Open Source, Citizen
Reporting, since 2008
 Citizen Reporting &
Alerting
 Crisis Mapping 2.0 tool of
choice
 Haiti & Chile Earthquakes
 Gulf of Mexico Oilspill
 Egyptian elections (5x!!)
 Pakistan Floods
 Etc, Etc..

12. USHAHIDI – BUSHFIRE CONNECT
Twitter: @bushfireconnect
http://bushfireconnect.org

13. BUSHFIRE CONNECT
Community
Powered
Community
Resilience
Integrate Crowd
Sourced and
Official
Information

14. INCIDENT REPORTS
SMS
Web-Form
Geo-RSS
Emails
Tweets

15. INCIDENT ALERTS – OPT IN
 SMS
 Email
 RSS…

16. WHERE ARE WE NOW?
Since May 2010
 Working prototype up and running
 Small team of volunteers (up to 7 people)
 $1200 cash
Next steps
 Local Trials in Dec 2010
 ‘Live’ in January
 Fundraising!

17. STANDARDS? - THEY’RE JUST
THERE!
(Geo-) RSS (in-/out)
KML/KMZ
WMS/WFS (through KML)
Opportunities
CAP
WMS/WFS out
Other?

18. SUMMARY
 Black Saturday – Information Breakdown
 Community Needs – Crisis Information 2.0
 Bushfire Connect
 Community powered
 Integrate crowd-sourced and official information
 Standards: They’re just there!

19. THAT’S IT… THANKS FOR LISTENING
 Maurits.vandervlugt@mercuryps.com.au
 http://spatial21.blogspot.com
 http://bushfireconnect.org
 Twitter: @mvandervlugt