SkyBase Mapping

In The News

June 14, 2011 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fighting fires with Fire(spot)    link to DHT’s article

Alberta company develops GPS software to battle blazes

A Grande Prairie-based company hopes to lessen the bushfire burn with technology this summer.

Firespot, specialty GPS software created by SkyBase Mapping, is designed to simplify Alberta Sustainable Resource Development’s data collection requirements for major wildfires, helping crews on the ground extinguish hotspots as quickly as possible.

“We spoke to a few helicopter pilots who told us the most difficult part of their job is documenting hotspot info and returning the data back to the government. They’d tag hotspots, but there were a dozen other steps involved – the whole process was just too complicated,” explains Shaun Brocklehurst, the mapper and computer programmer who helped create Firespot. “With Firespot, any helicopter pilot or infrared camera operation can complete the GIS requirements of fighting fires with a few clicks, and zero-mapping experience.”

Pilots documenting hotspots are given a Flash drive with a map of the forest fire area. By uploading the map to their GPS, pilots can fly the entire interior of the fire without missing an inch. When the pilot and camera operator find a hotspot, it’s tagged with a GPS coordinate.

“When the helicopter lands, the exact location of the hotspots still burning can be shared with ground crews battling the blaze,” explains Skybase president Rob Coutts. “You can load the coordinates directly to a GPS, drastically speeding up the ground crew’s response time.”

Hotspots are also exported into an SRD-compatible database to be merged into the Government’s mapping system.  Users can also print maps of hotspots with a list of GPS coordinates.

“We’re always looking for ways to help people do their jobs as efficiently as possible. We tell people we build maps, and sell efficiency,” explains Skybase president Rob Coutts. “FireSpot is designed to save time when minutes matter the most.”

A free trial version of the software is available at www.skybase.ca/products/FireSpot

For more information, please contact:

Rob Coutts, President
Mobile 780.518.2666
Email skybaserob@gmail.com

About SkyBase Mapping – Locally owned and operated, SkyBase Mapping creates user friendly specialty GPS software for the oil patch and beyond, as well as navigational mapping and locating software.  Our flagship product is PatchMap, the oilfield’s most complete set of routable GPS road data.