| Description |
Wildfires can threaten and subsequently impact communities, lives, and property. In the past decade, wildfires have burned over 60 million acres and damaged thousands of structures in the U.S. The condition of a home is a major concern of evacuees from fire- affected communities, and there is an increasing need to improve house-damage notification during or immediately after a wildfire, especially in cases where evacuees are displaced for an extended period of time. As a wildfire progresses, maps should be updated and disseminated in a timely manner to help people understand which areas have sustained damage. The goal of this research is to develop a web-based prototype to share timely, trustworthy home-loss information by on-scene personnel through interactive maps and dynamic graphs. Web technologies, open-source libraries, and database and cloud servers were utilized for system development. The online system supports information needs during or following a wildfire. People can be informed by system notifications regarding the damage condition of homes with up-to-date maps. The system further serves as an information hub and provides valuable home-loss datasets for postwildfire research and analysis. |
