InciWeb
Encyclopedia
InciWeb is an interagency all-risk
incident web information management system
provided by the United States Forest Service
released in 2004. It was originally developed for wildland fire
emergencies, but can be also used for other emergency
incidents (natural disaster
s, such as earthquake
s, flood
s, hurricanes, tornado
es, etc.).
Official announcements include evacuations, road closures, news releases, maps, photographs, and basic info and current situation about the incident.
Incident information can be accessed by:
was hosted at the United States Forest Service
- Wildland Fire Training and Conference Center, at McClellan Airfield
, California
, comprising three server
s:
Web traffic
averages 2 million plus hits
daily during the fire season with the ability to handle 3.5 million hits.
The servers were moved to the National information Technology Center (NITC), Kansas City, Missouri
on July 16, 2008, along with the release of version 2.0; the current version is 2.2.
and the Summer 2008 California wildfires
.
These same agencies are also in the National Interagency Fire Center
.
Risk
Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
incident web information management system
Web information system
web-based information displays many benefits of multimedia technology. using today's fast broadband connections, it is possible to stream sophisticated content to a computer anywhere in the world. This is an advantage for many people as the information can be received and read wherever and whenever...
provided by the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
released in 2004. It was originally developed for wildland fire
Wildfire
A wildfire is any uncontrolled fire in combustible vegetation that occurs in the countryside or a wilderness area. Other names such as brush fire, bushfire, forest fire, desert fire, grass fire, hill fire, squirrel fire, vegetation fire, veldfire, and wilkjjofire may be used to describe the same...
emergencies, but can be also used for other emergency
Emergency
An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative...
incidents (natural disaster
Natural disaster
A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard . It leads to financial, environmental or human losses...
s, such as earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s, flood
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
s, hurricanes, tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
es, etc.).
Introduction
It was developed with two primary missions:- 1. Provide the public a single source of incident related information
- 2. Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public AffairsPublic relationsPublic relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
community
Official announcements include evacuations, road closures, news releases, maps, photographs, and basic info and current situation about the incident.
Incident information can be accessed by:
- web browser at http://www.inciweb.org
- TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
- RSSRSS-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
web feed
Technical
The original applicationApplication software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
was hosted at the United States Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
- Wildland Fire Training and Conference Center, at McClellan Airfield
McClellan Airfield
McClellan Airfield , known officially as McClellan Airport, is a county-owned public-use airport located six miles northeast of the central business district of Sacramento, a city in Sacramento County, California, United States....
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, comprising three server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
s:
- Database serverDatabase serverA database server is a computer program that provides database services to other computer programs or computers, as defined by the client–server model. The term may also refer to a computer dedicated to running such a program...
- Administrative serverApplication serverAn application server is a software framework that provides an environment in which applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do...
- Load balancerLoad balancing (computing)Load balancing is a computer networking methodology to distribute workload across multiple computers or a computer cluster, network links, central processing units, disk drives, or other resources, to achieve optimal resource utilization, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid...
for the public content which routes traffic to a pool of eight servers.
Web traffic
Web traffic
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit...
averages 2 million plus hits
Hit (internet)
A hit is a request to a web server for a file . When a web page is uploaded from a server the number of "hits" or "page hits" is equal to the number of files requested. Therefore, one page load does not always equal one hit because often pages are made up of other images and other files which stack...
daily during the fire season with the ability to handle 3.5 million hits.
The servers were moved to the National information Technology Center (NITC), Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
on July 16, 2008, along with the release of version 2.0; the current version is 2.2.
Availability issues
InciWeb was having technical difficulties due to the high volume of Internet users trying to access the site during the September-October 2006 Day FireDay Fire
The Day Fire was a wildfire that burned largely in the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County, California.It was the sixth largest wildfire in California history. The fire started on Labor Day, September 4, 2006 and by October 1 had burned over , cost US$70.3 million, and at one point had...
and the Summer 2008 California wildfires
Summer 2008 California wildfires
The summer 2008 California wildfires, collectively dubbed the Northern California Lightning Series by CAL FIRE, were a concentrated outbreak of wildfires during the summer of 2008. Over 2,780 individual fires were burning at the height of the period, burning large portions of forests and chaparral...
.
Participating agencies
- United States Forest ServiceUnited States Forest ServiceThe United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
- Bureau of Land ManagementBureau of Land ManagementThe Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...
- Bureau of Indian AffairsBureau of Indian AffairsThe Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
- Fish and Wildlife Service
- National Park ServiceNational Park ServiceThe National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
- National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
- Department of the Interior Office of Aircraft Services
- National Association of State ForestersNational Association of State ForestersThe National Association of State Foresters is a non-profit organization that represents the directors of all 50 State Forestry agencies, the eight United States territories, and the District of Columbia...
- United States Fire AdministrationUnited States Fire AdministrationThe United States Fire Administration is a division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency which in turn is managed by the Department of Homeland Security located in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Emmitsburg.-History:...
These same agencies are also in the National Interagency Fire Center
National Interagency Fire Center
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, is the physical facility that is home to the National Interagency Coordination Center , and the National Multi-Agency Coordination group ....
.
External links
- Inciweb official website
- Judith L. Downing, Ronald W. Hodgson, Jonathan G. Taylor, and Shana C. Gillette. Fire Information for Communities at Risk in Interface Wildfires: Lessons Learned From the 2003 Southern California Megafires. pages 135-152 in Fire Social Science Research From the Pacific Southwest Research Station: Studies Supported by National Fire Plan Funds. August 2008. United States Forest ServiceUnited States Forest ServiceThe United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
. InciWeb is mentioned on page 139, footnote 11.