Raul Vera at Google created interactive maps during the 2009 Australian bushfires using geocoded fire location data from government agencies to help people locate fires and check on friends and family. The maps proved very popular, receiving millions of views per day. This highlighted the value of making geospatial disaster information openly available so others can reuse it in innovative ways to help people during emergencies. Government agencies should consider how to structure and license their disaster data to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and prevent misuse while enabling useful third-party applications.

1. Mapping a Disaster
Raul Vera, Google
rvera@google.com

2. February 7, 2009

3. fires started sat 7 feb
still danger a week+
later
some fires burned a
month

4. many fires, across
the state

5. up to date information

6. official sources
Country Fire Authority:
private lands
www.cfa.vic.gov.au
Dept of Sustainability and Environment:
public lands
www.dse.vic.gov.au

8. problem #1
server load
500 Server Error

9. problem #2
locating these places

11. friendʼs elderly
parents here
friend lives sibling
here lives here

12. but where are the fires?

13. who needs to know?
people in danger
friends and family
people following
the news

14. sunday morning
started thinking we
should do something

15. version one
process CFA RSS feed
geocode locations
publish as an interactive map

18. version two
automate geocoding
auto-refresh the map
search, links to relief agencies

20. slight issue
Fire service data not always clean
“5KM SE WARBUTON TRK”

22. step three
satellite imagery

24. NASA MODIS
TERRA and AQUA
250m resolution
daily coverage
IR detectors
rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov

25. polar orbit
online within
a few hours

28. made map
embeddable
news sites
blog posts
homepage promo
peak:
8M map views/day
sustained:
60 hits/sec

29. benefits
reassurance for the worried
better understanding of the fire scale
took load off fire service websites

30. lesson
enable people to reuse
your data

31. geocoded RSS ➙ maps
=
map of family/friends

32. going forward

33. geocoded RSS
more
please

34. more than fires

35. geo spatial
information
conveys vital
information

36. disasters
alerts
evacuations

37. how to ensure
accuracy, timeliness?
very real concern for
disaster-relief agencies

38. create clear license
lay out terms for re-use

39. for instance
attribution
links
timeliness

40. structure
attach times to data
attach locations to data
use georss

41. prevent misuse
selectively
e.g. limit precision locating urban fires

42. you arenʼt the only
one with a use for
your data

43. open data
especially when lives
may depend on it