First Responder Support Tools (FiRST), Android, User Manual ...

First Responder Support Tools (FiRST), Android, User Manual Version 3.0

Table of Contents Purchase and Installation .............................................................................................. 2 Purchasing ................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Registering .................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Placing Incidents ........................................................................................................... 2 Location ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Incident ................................................................................................ 3 Access to IED data ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 User Defined IED .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 Placing IED...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Add Contours .................................................................................................................................................................. 6 Hazmat Incident ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Placing Hazmat ............................................................................................................................................................ 6 Response Guide .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 Changing Weather ...................................................................................................................................................... 9 Move Incidents ........................................................................................................................................................... 9

Annotations, Points of Interests (POIs) and Roadblocks .............................................. 10 Place Annotations .................................................................................................................................................. 10 Query Points of Interest (POIs) ........................................................................................................................ 11 Assess Roadblocks................................................................................................................................................. 12

Email Incidents ........................................................................................................... 13 Offline Maps ............................................................................................................... 14 FiRST Sharing Service .................................................................................................. 15 Join and View Groups ........................................................................................................................................... 15 Group Permissions and Alerting Preferences ............................................................................................ 16 Posting Incidents ................................................................................................................................................... 17 View Group Incidents ........................................................................................................................................... 18


Purchase and Installation Purchasing FiRST is available on Google Play accessible through the website (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ara.android.first&hl=en) or through the “Apps” application on your mobile device. Search “IED Hazmat” to easily find the FiRST app.

Registering After installation, open the FiRST app to register the application. You must have network connectivity to register the app.

Email addresses included in the registration dialog will receive an email to validate the email address. Please check your email SPAM/Junk folder if you do not see an email a few minutes after registering the application. Users are not required to validate an email address to use the application; however, users will not be able to request additional data or capabilities nor can they interact with the FiRST Sharing Service (FSS) without a validated email. Note the primary email address, provided it is validated, will be the address posted with any incident the user posts to the FSS.

Placing Incidents Only one incident can be placed on the map at a time. Placing of incidents is done from the initial FiRST screen by selecting Place Incident.

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Location The location button allows users to search a location via address search, device GPS location, lat/long coordinates, or by scrolling the map under a set of “cross hairs”. Incidents are placed at the center of the map at the time of placement, but can be moved after placement (see Move Incidents below).

Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Incident IED incidents provide standoff for mandatory and shelter‐in‐place distances. FiRST includes a set of 8 IED types and distances based on the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bomb standoff guide. This data is treated as sensitive information and may not be available for your use. Access to IED data DHS bomb standoff data is automatically authorized for users that validate an email address ending in .gov, .mil, or .us. Other users can request access to the data through the application. Users should provide a short justification for their use of the data. Use of the data for response or planning activities in the US is often approved. Access to data by users outside the US will be adjudicated on a case‐by‐ case basis by the DHS Office for Bombing Prevention.

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Once approved for data access, users will receive both an alert on their mobile device and an email to their registered email addresses stating approval. After approval, users will need to return to the FiRST main screen before access to the IED data is provided. User Defined IED All users are able to create and save their own IED types with associated bomb explosive weights and standoff. Damage and injury contours will be based on the saved IED explosive weights as described in Add Contours.

To delete a user‐defined IED, press and hold on the IED to bring up an option to delete it.

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Placing IED To place an IED, users should first navigate the map to the general area of the incident. Select Place Incident, IED, then select the IED type. The map will display the incident location with Mandatory and Shelter‐in‐Place standoff. A legend with the standoff distances will display at the top of the map. Note, standoff distances are stored on the phone in metric units. When the legend shows distances in feet, the value shown may be off by 1 foot higher or lower than defined due to rounding of the metric standoff distance.

Users can toggle on and off the display of shading within the standoff zones and set other map parameters by selecting Menu, Map Options, and Contour Shading.

To change the IED type after placing, select IED at the top of the map screen.

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Add Contours Once an IED is placed on the map, users can display 6 pre‐defined damage and injury contours around the IED. These contours are based on FEMA 426 (Reference Manual to Mitigate Potential Terrorist Attacks Against Buildings). Turn on or off contours and contour legend from the Menu, Damage Contours dialog. By touching the legend, a pop‐up dialog will display showing the full title for the specific contour.

Hazmat Incident Hazmat standoff is based on the 2012 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG) (http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/library/erg). Placing Hazmat To place a Hazmat, users should first navigate the map to the general area of the incident. From the initial FiRST screen, select Place Incident, Hazmat to get to the Hazmat Summary screen. The Hazmat Summary screen allows user to select/confirm the hazmat type, size and time. Each of these selections may affect the standoff distances shown on the map. Select Update Map to display the incident standoff data on the map. The map will display the incident location with Isolate and Protect standoff. A legend with the standoff distances will display at the top of the map.

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To change the hazmat type, users should select the hazmat from the Hazmat Summary screen. The follow‐on screen provides the list of over 3,000 ERG hazmats. From the top of this screen, users can type in the search box parts of the hazmat name to quickly access the appropriate material.

Next to each hazmat name is a “favorites” star. Press‐hold the start to define a chemical as a “favorite”. Press‐hold again to unselect the hazmat as a favorite. Users can filter the list of hazmats by press‐hold of the “favorite” star at the top of the hazmat selection dialog.

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Users can toggle on and off the display of shading within the standoff zones and set other map parameters by selecting Menu, Map Options, and Contour Shading. Response Guide Selecting Response Guide from the Hazmat Summary screen provides access to the ERG response guide associated with the selected hazmat. From the upper right of the guide, users can select the telephone icon to access the list of contacts provided with the ERG. Selecting a contact will allow the user to call the contact.

Users should consult the Response Guide for additional detail about the selected chemical hazards and response guidance.

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Changing Weather Approximately 600 of the ERG hazmats have inhalation hazards. As such, these hazmats have a Protect distance that is oriented in the direction of winds. For winds that are less than 3 knots (~3.5 mph or 5.5 kph), the protect distances assumes calm winds and defines the protect distances in all directions. User should be careful to understand what winds are being used in defining any downwind protection distances. Users can review and change weather after an incident is placed by selecting Menu, Weather. Three tabs at the top of the Weather dialog allow users to view Forecast, User Input, and Compass options.

Current and Forecast weather is provided from three sources:   

WeatherBug network of current weather (http://weather.weatherbug.com) Norwegian Meterologisk Institutt (http://met.no) which provides worldwide weather forecast US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast weather for US locations only (http://www.weather.gov)

From the weather dialog, users can also select User Input and Compass weather. To use Compass weather, lay the phone flat and aim the phone into the wind, then select Update Map. Weather selections persist in the application until changed by the user. To update current or forecast weather without changing the weather source, users must go to the Weather dialog and select the Update Weather Forecast button.

Move Incidents Incidents can be moved by selecting the Location button at the top of the map screen.

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Annotations, Points of Interests (POIs) and Roadblocks Place Annotations To place a point annotation, go to Menu, Map Options, and select Place Annotations and Update Map. You will be returned to the map with the label, “Annotation Mode” displayed at the bottom of the map. Double‐click on the map to place a pin. Tap the pin location to bring up the pin label, default is “Point”, and a button to Edit POI to change the point label. Annotation pins are shown as purple.

Users can toggle the display of annotations from the Menu, Map Options screen.

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Query Points of Interest (POIs) With an incident defined on the map, users can perform a Google Search based on pre‐defined keywords around the incident location. Search results will be displayed on the map color coded to the keyword type. Access POIs by selecting Menu, and POIs. From the POI screen, select Run POI Query. Note the warning statement related to the validity of the data; data returned from Google Search is not guaranteed to be accurate in content or location. Users should not make decisions based solely on results from this query.

Selecting pins on the map provides the name for the POI search result.

Keywords used in the Google Search include:  

Police Fire 11

First Responder Support Tools (FiRST), Android, User Manual Version 3.0   

Hospitals Schools Government

Assess Roadblocks Once an incident is placed on the map, FiRST allows the user to quickly define an initial set of roadblocks necessary to isolate the incident area. Access this functionality by selecting Menu, Roadblocks. Invoking roadblocks sends data to the ARA Chokepoint server to perform the analysis and return results. The roadblock functionality uses US census TIGER data (http://www.census.gov/geo/maps‐data/data/tiger.html) and as such is only applicable to US and US territories. The roadblocks provided are a minimum set of roadblocks required to isolate an area of road (defined by the isolated radius) from roads outside an area (defined by the search radius). Users can define the isolated and search radii, which will always be centered at the incident location.

Results returned are shown as yellow pins. Selecting a pin provides the street(s) associated with the roadblock. If you initially do not see any results, adjust your map view to show the entire search radii and ensure the isolate radii covers areas that includes roads.

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Users must be careful in making decisions solely on the results of the roadblock results. Data used in the assessment is not always accurate and does not include access through parking lots or driveways. Roadblocks functionality also does not consider traffic direction (ie. It treats all roads as two‐way roads).

Email Incidents To email an incident and all associated POIs, Roadblocks, annotations, contours, and standoff data, select Menu, Email Results. Users will be provided an email message that includes a text summary of the incident, an image of the map at the time the option was selected, and attachments of the map Shape and KML files.

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Offline Maps With an incident placed on a map, users can save the map image for later reference by selecting Menu, Offline Mode. Selecting Capture Map Image allows the user to save the map image with a user‐defined name. This data can be viewed at a later date, even without network connectivity, by selecting Menu, Offline Mode, View Saved Maps.

To view saved maps, select Menu, Offline Mode, View Saved Maps. The initial screen allows users to filter results among event types. Scroll to the desired map and select Use Map. An image of the captured map will appear. Users can delete maps from the buttons in the upper right of the screen. To return to an interactive map, select the return button.

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FiRST Sharing Service The FiRST Sharing Service (FSS) is a service new in 2013. The service allows users of the FiRST app to post incidents and retrieve incidents based on the profile and groups associated with the user. FSS also allows groups to share incident data with external systems. To use the service, a FSS organizational account must first be established. You can find out more at www.firstsupporttools.com/Service.

Join and View Groups To post or view incidents to a FSS group (also referred to as Organizations), users must be associated with a group(s). Users also must have validated a registration email address. From the main FiRST screen, select Menu, FiRST Sharing Service. To join a group, select Join Organization. If you know the group code that you wish to join, you can input it and Submit. If you do not know the group code, you can Browse Public Organizations to find the appropriate organization. If you do not see the organization that you want to join listed, it is either because the organization has not established an FSS account or the organization has selected to not publically display their organization details for users to request joining.

Selecting an organization from the list provides information (based on the organization’s‐specified profile) on the organization’s contract information and description. Select Apply to this Organization to provide a justification for you to join. Selecting the Submit button at the bottom of the screen (you may need to hide the keyboard) to send the justification and the user’s FiRST registration details to the FSS Organizational Administrator for adjudication.

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Once a request to join an organization is submitted, the FSS Organizational Administrator will receive an email to let them know that a request to join is pending. After approval to join the organization, FiRST users will receive an alert indicating the approval and the organization will show up with a blue person icon in their My Organization screen. A yellow caution icon is used to signify a request to join an organization remains pending. The FSS Organizational Administrator must specify the posting rights for each approved user.

Group Permissions and Alerting Preferences Users can view their group specified permissions (post incidents internal/external to the group) and specify their alerting preferences. To do this, from the main screen, select Menu, FiRST Sharing Service, My Organizations. Select an organization. The follow‐on screen provides details for the organization and user 16

First Responder Support Tools (FiRST), Android, User Manual Version 3.0 preferences. Select Save Settings to save any changes. Note, permissions are set by the FSS Organizational Administrator and are shown for information purposes only.

Posting Incidents After joining a group, users are allowed to view incidents posted by users associated with the group. Users are allowed to post incidents to the group provided the FSS Organizational Administrator has granted those user rights to the user. To post an incident to a group(s), users must first have an incident defined in the FiRST app. Select Menu, Post to FiRST Sharing Service. On the following screen, users must name the incident, select one or more groups to post to, define whether the incident can be shared external to the group (based on FSS Organizational Profile), the incident type (operational or exercise), incident time and expiration of the post, any notes for the post, and any images that the user would like to include. Select Post to FSS to send the incident to the FSS server.

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Once posted, users associated with groups receiving the post will receive an alert that a new post is available.

View Group Incidents Users can view posted incidents from the FSS by 1) from the main screen, select Menu, FiRST Sharing Service, View Incidents or 2) from an incident map screen, select Menu, View Incidents. Selecting Yes on the next dialog will remove existing incidents on the map. Once selected, a list of posted incidents for any group that the user belongs to will be displayed. Incidents are sorted by incident times. A search field at the top of the list can be used to search any keyword associated with the incident title, type, or group name.

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Upon selecting an incident, the posted incident details are displayed on the map. Note, showing GPS location and injury/damage contours are user preferences. These are not stored as part of the posted incident. Once the posted incident is displayed, the user can manipulate the incident as previously described. Along with viewing incident map details, users can see other data about the posted incident by selecting Menu, View Incident Details. Images associated with the post are shown at the bottom of the incident details screen. Selecting an image will open a dialog to see the full size of the image.

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