NEWS RELEASES
Real-Time Wildfire Viewer Now Available on Mobile
Editor's Note: This news item was retrieved and first published through USGS's website.
GeoMAC, a near real-time web mapping service hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), was created nearly 20 years ago to give fire managers near real-time information about spreading wildfires, allowing them to make more effective decisions about where to deploy firefighting resources. Now it has gone mobile and available for campers, RV'ers and all who decide to stay updated on the information. The newly designed GeoMAC is now available through any web browser compatible with mobile devices.
According to the press release by the USGS, "The National Interagency Fire Center reports that 36,689 wildfires have burned 4,151,098 acres in the conterminous U.S. since January 1, 2018." Nationwide fire perimeter data is updated daily based upon input from incident intelligence sources, GPS data, and infrared (IR) imagery from fixed wing and satellite platforms. The GeoMAC web mapping service allows users in remote locations to manipulate map information displays, zoom in and out to display fire information at various scales and levels of detail. Randall Schumann, Associate Director of the USGS Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, makes a statement on the update: “The newly mobile-optimized GeoMAC is easy to use on a smartphone and should be an excellent addition to the valuable information GeoMAC provides to fire coordination personnel, firefighters, the press and the public.”
To learn more on what GeoMAC Mobile offers, visit the USGS website.