An astronaut's view of the West Fork Complex fire on June 19, 2013. Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

In the aftermath of recent forest fires in Colorado, comprehensive fire preparedness has gained support by Esri and the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) through sponsorship of an initiative called Vision 20/20.

The Vision 20/20 project strives to reduce fire vulnerability and greater prepare at-risk communities to fire hazards through education and by providing risk assessments derived from city demographics and basic mapping techniques.

Esri and IFE are partnering to develop these risk assessments, which will become freely available to fire departments in the United States, according to Esri. This will allow fire officials to pinpoint high-risk areas in a community and create tailor-made fire safety programs to fit the public’s needs. Free online training sessions will be made available by Vision 20/20 to further educate citizens on fire risk reduction.

Colorado Army National Guard and Fort Carson aviation assets provide firefighting assistance at the Black Forest fire in El Paso County on June 12, 2013. Image Credit: Army National Guard.

In addition, Vision 20/20 has played a key role in launching the Community Risk Reduction (CRR) initiative. Through CRR, city fire departments have partnered with social services groups to support fire safety education, outreach, and stewardship in local communities.

Esri is providing Vision 20/20 with its demographics and incident data and software to identify at-risk neighborhoods. These risk analyses will be put in the hands of fire safety staff to develop training internally and in high-risk communities. IFE is supporting the efforts in developing greater risk assessments to promote general fire prevention and mitigation.

IFE Vision 20/20 also promotes the Fire Prevention Advocacy Program, which provides activist toolkits aimed at gaining greater support for various fire prevention initiatives.