In a burning 10 story building scenario, an entire Fire Battalion might be engaged. In many cases, a 7 man extraction team is positioned very near the scene, but remains otherwise unengaged unless a firefighter goes down. Once a firefighter is down, there is often no more than 3 minutes to get him/her out before it becomes a body extraction/recovery operation.

In many cases, the firefighter wears a Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) on their jacket. If a firefighter goes down, he/she hits a button on their PASS which sets off an audible alarm and a flashing strobe; however, there is nothing to indicate their exact location or even what floor they might be on. Seventeen lives were lost in 2007 that have been potentially attributed to PASS system failures, or the inability of the extraction teams to find the firefighter in time.

With the NAViSEER system, the GPS initialization point might be established at the Command and Control (C2) vehicle. From there, all NAViSEER-equipped firefighters could be tracked to their close approximate position on a specific floor as long as their radio equipment could still communicate with the C2.  A 2D or 3D visualization console is implemented within the C2 vehicle that allows controllers to visually track the movement and pinpoint the location of the NAViSEER-equipped firefighters at all times. 

Our own SEER3D software provides stunning console views of movement and location of NAViSEER-equipped personnel.  This visualization software can combine with or overlay available Geographical Information System (GIS) application information on the C2 monitors that receive the current position messages from the NAViSEER units attached to the firefighters. If their radios fail, the extraction team would at a minimum have a last known good position or last transmitted position from which to start their search.

There are biometric sensors available that can be interfaced/integrated with the NAViSEER. If that were the case in this scenario, the backup or rescue team would be able to tell if the downed firefighter was alive or potentially unconscious and unable to use his radio and could direct the appropriate response precisely to his/her position.