Wildfire response tool nears launch in San Mateo County

Users will be able to sign up for the service in a variety of ways that are still being developed, including on a website that is yet to launch, and those signed up for SMCAlert will automatically receive the notifications.

The software will be a resource for residents as well as first responders, who say they’ll be able to respond even faster to an emergency once it’s deployed. The software includes a map of the county divided into 300 zones, with important information about each one, including population and the location of schools, firehouses and main roads. Also built into the software is a fire simulator that will tell responders what to expect in terms of fire spread one to five hours into the future.  

“Under normal circumstances it takes a bit of time to identify the emergency, who needs to evacuate, routes to evacuate to and where to go,” said Robert Marshall, fire marshal for the San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department. “This software cuts down on that time by telling us here’s your zone, the ways to go and it’s automated so we get the information out much quicker.”

Marshall, who lives in Contra Costa County where Zonehaven is already in place, said the software was effective during recent wildfires, providing important information at least 10 minutes before Twitter and other sources of information.  

“I was really pleased at how well it worked and how quickly it worked. I found out information much more quickly than I would have using the traditional media sites and Twitter was still not updated 10 minutes after the initial evacuation order went out,” he said. “From that standpoint, I’m really excited about this technology because I do believe it would actually work.”

The software is being implemented in the county after the San Mateo County Fire Chiefs Association in January of 2018 unanimously agreed to move forward with an evacuation plan, though the plan was initially just a set of zones to be printed in a binder. After discovering Zonehaven, the association convinced the Board of Supervisors to spend $75,000 in Measure K funds to create the zones and build the platform in the county. A long-term funding source is still needed to maintain the program moving forward, Marshall said.

Marshall delivered a presentation on the new software at a Belmont City Council meeting late February and he plans to do the same at other councils in the near future. Representing the city with the highest wildfire exposure in the county, Belmont councilmembers were thrilled about the impending rollout of the software.

“This is incredibly important,” said Vice Mayor Charles Stone. “We have a lot of folks who are concerned about this and don’t know what would happen in an evacuation so providing them with concrete information is great.”

At the meeting, the council also discussed the city’s response to Pacific Gas and Electric’s public safety power shutoff in October and what can be done to better prepare the city for similar events moving forward.

Moving forward, City Hall will serve as a serve as a community resource center offering water, charging stations and other resources during future PSPS events. The city also applied for a $500,000 grant for generators and traffic signal battery backups, but it was denied.

Stone proposed installing solar panels and a power wall at the Sports Complex.

“I hope we’re taking a creative look at this,” he said. “There are some places in town where if we coated the roofs with solar and installed a power bank, we’d be sitting pretty.”   

The county this spring will also rollout a plan for responding to future PSPS and high wind events.

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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