Issue link: https://resources.esri.ca/i/732729
Challenge Ranked as the third-largest urban area in the province of B.C., the Central Okanagan Region is especially vulnerable to wildfires; this is expected to intensify over the coming years. The Region has an unusually hot and dry climate, which when combined with substantial urban development and the recent Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, provides fertile conditions for wildfire activity. Wildfire smoke can spread rapidly and cause serious health risks including bronchitis, asthma and carbon monoxide exposure. Located 380 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, the Peachland wildfire moved over three kilometres in little over an hour, destroying four homes. Nearly one-fifth of the population was ordered to evacuate and over 17 fire trucks were deployed along with half a dozen water- bombing helicopters. Typically, during an emergency event, the EOC would make static PDF maps available to the public through media releases. However, this process introduced significant time delays because the Central Okanagan Region's GIS department would be inundated with requests for maps and information. An emergency of this magnitude called for a much quicker and more effective way to communicate with the public. Central Okanagan Regional District EOC issues evacuation alerts using ArcGIS Online In 2012, the Central Okanagan Regional District Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) was put to the test by a major wildfire that swept through the small lakefront community of Peachland, B.C. With wind gusts as strong as 50 kilometres fuelling the fire, emergency officials needed a quick and easy way to provide the public with real-time evacuation information. In response, the organization leveraged Esri's cloud platform ArcGIS Online to deploy an interactive Web map that made it possible to communicate life-saving evacuation orders and alerts in record time. 1 Esri Canada | Cloud GIS technology reduces risk and facilitates response during major wildfire event "ArcGIS Online allowed us to leverage our own basemap and addresses, which are updated weekly. Using this platform also removed a significant amount of overhead because it's compatible with almost any device, allowing us to create one map and deploy it many times." Dave Orlando CORD