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Pre-Planning the Desert

2 comments

BERNALILLO COUNTY, NEW MEXICO, FIREFIGHTERS ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE of recent refinements of modern technology to improve response capabilities in the desert.  Anybody who has driven through the wild west knows that you can travel for miles on end on unimproved roads that go nowhere.  Except to the occasional isolated homestead or makeshift dwelling.

Whenever the FD gets a call for a fire or medical emergency, it is common to struggle to find the location where the dirt roads have no names and the old trailer homes have no numbers.  And traveling down the wrong road will lead to a dead-end while you can see the smoke rising from just a couple of miles away. 

Now the county fire department is using their advanced GPS equipment to map out these outreaches and document the locations where people are living.  Taking a one-time blitz attack on the project to map out the vast Pajarito Mesa, a team of 20 firefighters is spending an entire week mapping out the roadways and identifying the locations where living souls are to be found.  Many, if not most of them, are the time-honored squatters who live their lives anonymously.

KRQE-TV Ch. 13 Albuquerque explains:

The concept of the project is simple; map every road, home and structure in the Pajarito Mesa, including land owners and squatters.  Bernalillo County Firefighters have already mapped more than 200 miles of road in only four days. They said they don’t know how many more miles they will have to do.

In addition to the roads, they’ve also documented each home.  Whether it’s a tent, a trailer or a house, each one will be placed on the map.  “There’s a bunch of houses out here, homes I should say,” Firefighter William Walker said.

Bernalillo County Battalion Commander John Nash said too often homes burn to the ground while fire crews desperately try to find their location. He said once the mapping is done, response time will be reduced.

Here is their video report from the field on this unique challenge:

Posted by on July 25, 2009 • Filed under: Fire-ology, Response times
  • Dal90

    I have no problem with the FD doing a project like this.

    The County administrator, though, needs to be told to STFU.

    Make this project 100% about public safety, at least in the public face of it. We’re doing this for public safety, that’s it.

    The County guy can mention that down the road there are tax issues they need to work out, but that’ll be done by the Planning Department GIS folks or tax assessor or whoever. The way he said what he said, IMHO, leaned too heavily on this FD effort being the start of that process.

    Even if in truth you’re planning to just snag the FD’s maps and give it to them to the tax assesor as a starting point, don’t say it in public.

    It’s the same reason we don’t turn water hoses on people at riots, and why we don’t tolerate police departments using turnout gear for “ruses” to fool crooks — it is extremely important that the FD maintains a position of neutrality. We’re the helping side of government, we’re not the enforcement side. Most FDs draw a distinction between company inspections for pre-fire planning and have a seperate inspection team and process for code enforcement for similiar reasons.

    We may not be 100% neutral — if you have a cop and civilian both down from similiar injuries, the cop gets treatment and transport priority. But you do that quietly and without making a big deal about it (and there are legitimate organizational pyschology reasons why you “help your own” including uniformed members of other agencies first in order to allow you to maximize how much you help everyone). But in the public, every day face you maintain that neutrality.

    People hearing “We’re gonna tax you” now rightfully are even more leery of cooperating with the FD going around.

    Oh, and my how-gov’t-operates spidey sense guarantees 1000% the real reason the county is hot to get this done isn’t public safety or taxation. It’s the 2010 Census. They want to get those housing units recorded, especially since most are going to be low income, so they can make sure they’re counted on the census and become part of their base for state and federal aid money for the next decade. Public safety and eventually taxation are just side benefits.

  • Dal90

    I have no problem with the FD doing a project like this.

    The County administrator, though, needs to be told to STFU.

    Make this project 100% about public safety, at least in the public face of it. We’re doing this for public safety, that’s it.

    The County guy can mention that down the road there are tax issues they need to work out, but that’ll be done by the Planning Department GIS folks or tax assessor or whoever. The way he said what he said, IMHO, leaned too heavily on this FD effort being the start of that process.

    Even if in truth you’re planning to just snag the FD’s maps and give it to them to the tax assesor as a starting point, don’t say it in public.

    It’s the same reason we don’t turn water hoses on people at riots, and why we don’t tolerate police departments using turnout gear for “ruses” to fool crooks — it is extremely important that the FD maintains a position of neutrality. We’re the helping side of government, we’re not the enforcement side. Most FDs draw a distinction between company inspections for pre-fire planning and have a seperate inspection team and process for code enforcement for similiar reasons.

    We may not be 100% neutral — if you have a cop and civilian both down from similiar injuries, the cop gets treatment and transport priority. But you do that quietly and without making a big deal about it (and there are legitimate organizational pyschology reasons why you “help your own” including uniformed members of other agencies first in order to allow you to maximize how much you help everyone). But in the public, every day face you maintain that neutrality.

    People hearing “We’re gonna tax you” now rightfully are even more leery of cooperating with the FD going around.

    Oh, and my how-gov’t-operates spidey sense guarantees 1000% the real reason the county is hot to get this done isn’t public safety or taxation. It’s the 2010 Census. They want to get those housing units recorded, especially since most are going to be low income, so they can make sure they’re counted on the census and become part of their base for state and federal aid money for the next decade. Public safety and eventually taxation are just side benefits.