When left unchecked wildfires can burn acres of land in mere minutes. On average, more than 100,000 wildfires clear 4 million to 5 million acres of land in the US every year. A wildfire can move at speeds of up to 14 miles an hour consuming everything—trees, brush, homes, humans—in its path.

The communication of location is one of the key barriers when managing a response. Getting information from isolated locations in time to make critical decisions is a constant challenge for the Interagency Fire Community.

To help solve this issue Intterra have integrated what3words into their product suite.

Intterra is a geospatial technology company that specialises in public safety and emergency situational awareness. Their platform of real-time data, field data collectors and analytical tools provide firefighters with information to save lives, preserve property, and prevent catastrophes.

Intterra is being used across the US including the US Forest Service, the States of Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and many other County and City Public Safety Agencies.

what3words is a simple location referencing system based on a global grid of 3metre x 3metre where each square has been pre-allocated a fixed 3 word address. Using an unambiguous sequence of words which refer to an area just a few metres in size means both technical and non-technical people can communicate that location more quickly and easily than with any other system.

“We are very pleased with our direct integration with what3words. Communicating precise locations with 3 clear, unambiguous words take the guesswork out of “where” for us. We find what3words much easier to communicate than coordinates over the radio,” says David Blankinship, Principal at Intterra. “what3words is used broadly within the Intterra SITUATIONANALYST software platform, deployed to every wildfire, city, county and government customer. It has become a popular feature for customers as they manage operations and analysis functions.”