Incident Management
      Back to home
      1. Knowledge Base
      2. Workflows & Best Practices
      3. Incident Management

      Incident Mapping Workflow

      Best practices and tips to improve upon your incident mapping

      This article is intended to supplement and (not replace) the following articles with 

      Overview

      Viewing current incident mapping in one place is an important component for providing a common operational picture.  For most clients, initial incident locations auto-populate on the map using a CAD feed for metro agencies, Active Incidents (IRWIN) for wildfire agencies, or other custom sources.    Likewise, incident manage team mapping of large wildfire fires can be viewed using the Active Incident Mapping layer provided from the National Incident Feature Service (NIFS), 
      The Intterra incident mapping described in this article provide users the ability to add and share near-real-time mapping for initial attack and emerging wildfires, as well as all hazard incidents that that are outside the scope of the NIFS.   
       The incident mapping workflow is simply - 
      1. Add the incident icon first, provide an incident name, and save.
      2. Add additional features, such as a fire perimeter, staging areas, division assignments, evacuation areas, etc, making sure to associate each feature with the incident.
      3. Share your incident mapping with an incident management team and others as needed.
      4. Keep Intterra Incident Mapping clean and current.

      Details

      1) Add the Incident Icon First

      Any incident mapping in Intterra should begin with adding an incident icon (to establish the incident name), and then flow to feature mapping.  As many as a dozen tools and reports rely on having incident features correctly associated to the indent name (including Briefing Mode).  In addition, associating an Intterra wildfire incident with the matching Active Incidents (IRWIN) incident when they exist, will auto-fill the Incident ID and help reduce redundancy in the wildfire reports. 
       
      Following these steps will assure that other tools and reports in Intterra work as expected:
      1. Add a manage the incident icon or copy an existing feature, such as an Active Incidents (IRWIN), as an Intterra incident. 
      2. Over-write the auto-generated incident name (userid @ current date) by highlighting it and typing the incident place name.  Use the IRWIN name, when available.
      3. When adding additional map features to the incident, be sure to select and associate the best incident name from the dropdown menu.  The globe icon is there to let you know other options are available.
      NOTE: If IRWIN data is updated after map features are added (for example, a fire starts and is mapped prior to data flowing through IRWIN), someone on your team should eventually edit the fire and its features to associate it with the official Active Incidents (IRWIN) fire using the auto-fill pull-down.
       
       
      NOTE: This video is a bit dated in UI, but the process is the same. 

      2) Add additional features

      Once the incident icon is created, start mapping the incident.  The complexity of the mapping is up to agency policy and the needs of the incident and ranges from simply adding a rough immediate wildfire perimeter and perhaps an evacuation area to mapping needed to for an incident action plan with division assignments, staging areas, and all hazard mapping. 
       While the complexity of mapping varies, the process is the same -
      1. Add the feature, then 
      2. Edit the incident name field and select the the proper incident to associate it with.
      Simplified and logical grouping of the features provides a focused workflow.  Click Incident Mapping Symbols Reference for a full list of possible groupings and associated symbols.  Here is summary of 
      • For all incident types: Incident Information and Access, Critical Infrastructure
      • By Incident Type: Wildfire, Natural Hazard, Hazmat, Law and EMS, SAR
      • Assessments: Damage Assessments, Structure Triage
      TIP: Use the Label the Map feature (Information and Access  Features) to Add Text to Map. The Label the Map feature can be used to add important information to the map. 
      • This may be important for informative notes associated with a map feature, such as radio channel assignments to a division, landmarks to help users navigate, etc., or
      • Add information to a map feature so users don't need to click to view that information in the Info Panel, such as the capacity of a water source, safety area, etc.  The label field in the incident features doesn't yet display on the map (for GIS use later). 
      NOTE: Labels do not display on the Field Tool app.

      3) Share Incident Mapping

      Sharing FROM Intterra

      As an incident escalates, it's important to be able to share your 'Intterra' mapping to the National Incident Feature Service (NIFS) used by the IMT's GISS using a process that saves time and minimizes duplication of effort.   Since the Intterra and NIFS data schema are the same for wildfire and triage, the incident's GISS can simply copy the Intterra features along with all the attributes and attachments directly into the NIFS
       There are three ways to share data to the GISS:
      • Use the Layer Export Tool to export of your data for an area of interest.  You can email a link for the GISS to download the data.
      • Login to your AGOL NIFC account and copy features to the NIFS - Incident Workflow to AGOL-NIFS
      • Intterra can approve a GISS to access the services directly into their ArcGIS Pro session.  Contact support@intterragroup.com for details.
      The same process can be used to share other types of data from Intterra.
      Share TO Intterra
      There is a two step process to adding mapping to Intterra:
      1. Use the Add Layer Tool to add mapped feature to a users local Intterra session (no one else will see it).  The referenced article includes a list of compatible file formats. 
      2. Use Copy to the Map to share with all users.  NOTE: Only the geometry of the is copied.  Attributes will need to be filled in by the user. 

      You can also copy to and from:

      1. Copy to and from AGOL layers when logged into your AGOL account on the Layers Menu 
      2. Copy a heat perimeter and other features from the Airborne Intel Tool mission to your map.    

      4) Keep Intterra Incident Mapping Clean and Current

      The list of Intterra incidents can get stale over time and can include incorrect or duplicate incident names if users are not careful to associate the name of each feature to an incident. 
      It's a good practice for your organization to have a process in place for managing and deleting (archiving) non-active incidents.  The Incidents Tool allows users to see and zoom to incident features by name.  Users with management privileges can rename and delete (archive) all features associated to an incident by selecting Manage Incidents.