{"id":772375,"date":"2026-05-05T06:04:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T13:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=772375"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:44:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:44:35","slug":"uniting-everyone-fighting-americas-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/uniting-everyone-fighting-americas-wildfires","title":{"rendered":"One Digital Tool Unites 35,000 Firefighters Fighting America\u2019s Wildfires"},"author":671,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10862],"tags":[473082,271,493423,152552,471971],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478422],"esri_blog_department":[478242],"class_list":["post-772375","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esri","tag-coordination","tag-mapping","tag-prediction","tag-training","tag-wildfire","esri-blog-category-wildfire","esri_blog_department-public-safety"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"How 35,000 wildland firefighters now share a single real-time map to coordinate wildfire response across jurisdictions.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"As the US Wildland Fire Service brings five Interior bureaus under one mission, a shared digital platform is already connecting 35,000 firefighters\u2014regardless of agency, jurisdiction, or where the fire burns.\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>The NIFC Org has grown from 300 users in 2014 to 35,000 in 2026, with firefighters documenting their work in the field on mobile devices.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>In 2025, approximately 6,700 wildland incidents were documented with full operational data in NIFS.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Real-time location sharing, piloted in Texas in 2025, is rolling out to all field accounts nationwide.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah Hartsburg spent years on wildland fire crews\u2014engine, helicopter, hand crews\u2014before she moved into geographic information system (GIS) technology. Early in her career, her crew would spend days going structure to structure near a fire, assessing risk, documenting what needed protection, and filling out forms.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEvery time a new team came in, the crews were reassessing the same structures again,\u201d said Hartsburg, now a national data manager with the US Wildland Fire Service, \u201cbecause the data wasn\u2019t making it to where it needed to be. All that work was being repeated\u2014and the crews on the ground could have been doing something else.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That gap\u2014between what firefighters know in the field and what gets captured, kept, and shared\u2014is what a decade of investment in digital tools has helped close. For years, the agencies responsible for wildland fire in the United States fought fire together but often operated with disparate data standards. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, became their common ground, and the NIFC Org, a shared ArcGIS Online platform, became their common operating picture\u2014shared standards, shared tools, and a shared view of every fire across the country.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That bridging of technology is now being followed by an organizational one. On January 12, 2026, Brian Fennessy\u2014a California fire veteran who began his career with the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management\u2014was appointed to lead the new US Wildland Fire Service, consolidating the Department of the Interior's fire agencies under a single mission. \u201cWildfire response depends on coordination, clarity, and speed,\u201d Fennessy said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.doi.gov\/pressreleases\/interior-launch-us-wildland-fire-service\">in a press release<\/a>. \u201cThis effort is about bringing programs together and building a framework that better supports firefighters and the communities they serve.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>One Platform, Every Fire<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Skip Edel has been supporting wildland fire operations with GIS since 2000. He was there when the data lived in local geodatabases on individual computers, when maps were printed once a day and pinned to a bulletin board, and when a firefighter who didn\u2019t make it back to the incident command post by nightfall simply didn\u2019t get their updated data on the map. He is now the Fire GIS Program lead for the US Wildland Fire Service and an administrator of NIFC Org, where he and his team have spent years welcoming everyone to the platform and tuning it to fit their needs.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The name chosen for the platform reflects its founding principle. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise has long been a gathering point for federal, state, and local agencies working wildland fire together\u2014and when the NIFC Org was established, membership was extended to any cooperator responding to wildland fire, regardless of agency or jurisdiction. In 2014, about 300 users\u2014mostly GIS specialists\u2014were part of that organization. Today there are 35,000, mostly field firefighters accessing the system from a phone or tablet.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe really changed our workflow,\u201d Edel said. Before, GIS staff updated maps overnight and those maps stayed static until the next shift. In rapidly moving fire, that 24-hour cycle created gaps in awareness. \u201cThey just pull out their phones and collect data. If they\u2019re on the way to a new incident, they can see the fire and the area around it\u2014they can get a picture of what they\u2019re getting into.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"kaltura","video_id":"1_j3l8ij1h","time":false,"start":0,"stop":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the core of the platform is the National Incident Feature Service, or NIFS. It\u2019s not a map. It\u2019s a standardized, continuously updated data layer open to all wildland fire personnel regardless of agency or affiliation. Any authorized GIS user can pull the data service directly into their own mapping environment to interrogate, model, and analyze wildfire incidents. That data can be layered with fuel moisture, weather, topography, and historical fire records\u2014building a picture of what a fire is likely to do before it does it.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cA goal of the Wildland Fire Service is to better use resources and better respond to wildland fire,\u201d Edel said. \u201cWe have a common operating picture throughout the country\u2014the National Incident Feature Service runs from Puerto Rico to Hawaii, available to anyone in between.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2025, approximately 6,700 wildland fire incidents were documented in NIFS with full operational tactical details all mapped using standard symbology. \u201cStandards help anyone on the fire line understand what you\u2019re trying to communicate,\u201d Edel said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fire perimeters and incident locations are published publicly to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com\/\">NIFC Open Data Site<\/a>\u2014but the tactical picture, the fire lines, drop points, and planning lines that firefighters work from, stays within the NIFC Org.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>A Feed That Serves Everyone<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For every fire, there are evacuations and people waiting to learn whether their home survived. With all-digital workflows, public awareness happens much more quickly now. Every five minutes, NIFS data approved for public release is pushed to the <a href=\"https:\/\/data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com\/\">NIFC Open Data Site<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe GIS folks just focus on serving the firefighter on the incident,\u201d Edel said. \u201cWe scrape the data for public awareness off the top automatically.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The scale of demand for that public feed is striking. Last year, the portal logged billions of hits over the summer fire season\u2014a measure of how many people are anxious about their homes and properties. Google scrapes the data. Apps like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.watchduty.org\/\">Watch Duty<\/a>\u00a0pull fire polygons directly. Insurance companies use perimeter data to position private engine crews.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772387,772383,772388]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That public picture is only as current as what firefighters are building on the ground. When crews arrive at an active incident, the intelligence collected by the team before them is already waiting. \u201cIncoming resources were headed right to where they were needed,\u201d said Craig Gallagher, a wildfire GIS specialist with the US Wildland Fire Service, \u201cand they had that picture at their fingertips as soon as they connected.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That same commitment to sharing has driven a steady expansion of what the open data site offers the public. Current fires update continuously. All incidents from the current year are available as they occur. Historical fire perimeters go back to 2020, with earlier records being added as agencies digitize their archives. A new fire progression feature stacks daily fire extent perimeters so anyone can watch how a fire moved across the landscape\u2014updated daily, and sometimes more frequently.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For residents in fire-prone areas, this helps them understand how fires behave, how quickly they move, and what the terrain and history of a place suggests about where a fire is likely to go. The data that firefighters use to make decisions is increasingly the same data available to the people who have to live with the consequences.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772390,772389,772392,772391]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>When Every Input Converges<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now that firefighters can instantly share data, that same connectivity also shares everyone\u2019s location. NIFC piloted the capability with roughly 1,500 firefighters in Texas in 2025 and is rolling it out to all firefighters this year. On a fast-moving fire incident, that location awareness changes how decisions get made\u2014who needs support, where effort is being duplicated, and where coverage is needed with no one there yet. The map stops being a record of what happened and starts being a tool for what happens next.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Location sharing among firefighters is one input in a much richer intelligence picture\u2014one that includes field observers scouting terrain ahead of crews, fixed cameras on ridgelines watching for smoke, and infrared flights scanning fire perimeters after dark. When crosswinds ground aircraft and a fire is moving fast,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/inside-fireguard-wildfire-awareness\">FireGuard\u2014<\/a>a program that puts National Guard intelligence analysts on round-the-clock satellite monitoring\u2014provides a much-needed input that spans North America. And on the horizon, Earth Fire Alliance\u2019s FireSat constellation, purpose-built for wildfire detection, will provide global coverage at intervals that current systems can\u2019t match.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When all those inputs converge, fire behavior becomes more predictable. Analysts already run thousands of simulations to map where a fire is likely to go before it gets there. Better prediction means earlier decisions, more time to position resources, and less destruction from fires. AI is being tested to help manage that data flow. A voice interface could reduce the steps between a field observation and a map update. The less friction between what a firefighter sees and what gets shared, the more useful the picture becomes for everyone.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hartsburg moved into GIS because she wanted to fix how data traveled. Now, she\u2019s pursuing fire behavior analyst training\u2014following the data from the map into the models. She\u2019s not alone. Across the wildland fire community, the tools are pulling people forward into new roles, new skills, and new ways of thinking about the growing challenge of wildfires.<\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learn more about how\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/wildland-fire\/overview\">GIS is applied to prepare, mitigate, suppress, and recover from wildland fire<\/a>.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"<h3 style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Training the Line\u2014The Next Step for Digital Workflows<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The best advertisement for digital workflows is on an active fire. When crews can see each other\u2019s contributions building in real time\u2014a dozer line added here, a hot spot flagged there, resources positioned where the intelligence says they\u2019re needed\u2014the map stops being a tool someone else manages and becomes the medium through which the whole team operates.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Craig Gallagher, a wildfire GIS specialist with the US Wildland Fire Service, looks for moments to make that visible. When his team pre-positioned in Casper, Wyoming, waiting for a fire assignment, he had two days and an undivided audience. He built a fake incident and ran the operations chiefs through realistic scenarios\u2014data collection, symbology, and how each specialty feeds the picture and draws from it. The goal was to walk through the capabilities of the NIFC Org tools. It also served to reinforce that what you put in is what others act on.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the real fire activated, every crew that arrived was looking at the same picture from the moment they connected, built on intelligence that earlier crews had been collecting for hours. The map served as the coordination conduit before anyone had to ask.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFirst day I\u2019m on assignment, if you want to bring me GPS points, that\u2019s fine,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cBut day two, we\u2019re going to learn about ArcGIS Field Maps. This is too valuable to just ignore.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Skip Edel, the Fire GIS Program lead for the US Wildland Fire Service, wants digital workflows on every firefighter\u2019s training list. Each spring, crews arrive knowing exactly what refresher courses they need to complete\u2014fire behavior, safety protocols, equipment operation. The data skills that make the shared map work are not yet required. \u201cLearning Field Maps should be as standard as learning the pump on a fire engine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah Hartsburg, a national data manager with the US Wildland Fire Service, sees the shift happening at the data quality level. The initial push was to get more people collecting field observations. Now, the focus is on the attributes, comments, and tagging that make those observations actionable when thirty people are feeding the same map. Better data means better decisions, where to position resources, and where the fire is most likely to move.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the intelligence derived from the NIFC Org becomes harder to ignore, the workflows that produce it will become standard operating procedure. The map becomes less a report delivered to you and more a conduit for vital conversations.<\/p>","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>One Digital Tool Unites 35,000 Wildfire Firefighters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How 35,000 wildland firefighters now share a single real-time map to coordinate wildfire response across jurisdictions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/uniting-everyone-fighting-americas-wildfires\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Digital Tool Unites 35,000 Firefighters Fighting America\u2019s Wildfires\" \/>\n<meta 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