During an incident, threats and hazards are unpredictable variables that may increase to a ubiquitous danger for responders and civilians caught in the scene. Such emerging threats may include dangerous and fragile enclosed spaces, leakages of hazardous toxic substances and contaminants that propagate with speed and ease and multiple, diverse locations requiring imminent intervention.

To protect first responders, victims and built infrastructure requires a systematic approach for improving safety, efficiency and effectiveness of perations. This can only be provided when responders are able to continuously (and rapidly) detect, monitor and analyse passive and active threats and hazards at incident scenes in real time. By improving their situational awareness and informed decision-making will safeguard them from potential threats. 

Location of response activities varies from extensive geographic areas to enclosed spaces within damaged infrastructures. It is often the case that first responders operate without knowing their own or team members’ location in indoor spaces, their proximity to threats and hazards, the assets available at their reach as well as whereabouts of those in need of help

The ability to geolocate those operating and those in distress as well as their proximity to danger, in various environments, could greatly improve the safety of responders and boost situational awareness leading to the most efficient and effective response.

At present, operations are often silo-ed and incident management systems are lacking interoperability with each other and with external information sources. When facing large scale disasters, emergency managers, team leaders and crew members require to taking quick decisions to guide and perform response actions safely, efficiently and effectively

It is of critical importance on one hand to comprehend information gathered, extract intelligence and on the other hand to convey in a tailored way such outputs among agencies and between teams for augmenting the  Common Operational Picture. Moreover, the COP should enable reaching information and command & control interoperability, so that collaborative sensemaking can be applied when responding small or large-scale crises.