*** PRESS RELEASE! ***

​​Keno Fire Rescue & EMS

Redlands, California – July 22, 2015 – Keno Fire Protection District, along with the Oregon Department of Forestry Klamath Unit, was honored with a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the 2015 Esri International User Conference in San Diego, California.  This award acknowledges vision, leadership, hard work, and innovative use of Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) technology.

Keno Fire Protection District and the ODF Klamath Unit are using Esri ArcGIS technology to continue the development of an interactive situational awareness platform that allows users to gather information from many sources and makes it easy to distribute to homeowners and emergency responders.  This system, called Situation Analyst, provides incident managers, planners and responders with real-time information on which to base their opinions.  It allows homeowners to understand how fire planners have assessed their risk by letting them see the rating for their property and view information about how to make their home and property safer in the event of a wildfire.  Homeowners can also communicate back to the fire planners any improvements they have made, as well as register any special needs they may have in the event of an evacuation.

Over the years, Keno Fire Protection District and the ODF Klamath Unit have conducted many home assessments, evaluations and fire plans that, in the end, sat in a file cabinet in someone’s office.  Situation Analyst makes it possible to feed this vital safety information to any firefighter with a login and a smartphone, providing both the firefighter and fire managers with a view of the current situation.  The system not only senses a firefighter’s location, but also lets them access reports and information to improve their safety and effectiveness.  As a situation evolves, it allows personnel to view the location of individual homes that have registered special needs where people may need assistance in the event of an evacuation.  The fire department can use the system to communicate to the homeowner the incident information and any changes that may be occurring through either text or email.  Keno Fire Protection District and the ODF Klamath Unit have reached out to neighbors across the state and now, with a simple login and password, other departments, counties and cooperators have full access to this program to use at home or when responding to help others.  Visit the KCRSG (Klamath County Ready-Set-Go) website at www.kcrsg.org for more information and to see how you can become involved in making sure you are prepared in the event of a natural disaster.

In addition to Keno Fire Protection District/ODF Klamath Unit, Esri honored more than 170 organizations from around the world and across a variety of industries including agriculture, cartography, climate change, defense and intelligence, economic development, education, government, health and human services, telecommunications, and utilities.  Only five of these awards were in the area of public safety, and Keno Fire Protection District/ODF Klamath Unit was awarded one of only three in the United States.

“The SAG Awards identify the organizations and people who are using the power of geography to make our world a better place,” says Esri president Jack Dangermond.  “At Esri, we are always deeply inspired by the passion and innovation of our users.  They deserve recognition for their invaluable contributions to their communities and the continued evolution of geographic science.”

For more information about the 2015 Special Achievement in GIS Award winners, including project information and photos, please visit esri.com/sag.

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically.  The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities.  Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis.  Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.  Visit their website at www.esri.com.