Saving Lives with ATOS

Knowing where your team is while on mission is vital. Technology is there to assist and ignoring advances in PLI, position location information, can be dangerous. One of the most dangerous situations in the world of wildland firefighting is dropping fire retardant to suppress out of control fires. In 2018 a firefighter was accidentally killed when thousands of gallons of flame-suppressing liquid were dropped from a VLAT.  Very Large Airtanker (VLAT) travels at a speed of 150 knots in support of a California wildfire. When on final approach for the drop there wasn’t clear communication where the aircraft and the firefighters were located. The VLAT dropped 10,000 gallons of retardant in the area.  The retardant struck with such force it uprooted an 87-foot (27-meter) tree that fell on Matthew Burchett, a 42-year-old battalion chief from Utah helping with the Mendocino Complex Fire north of San Francisco. This has happened in the military where Close Air Support inadvertently dropped ordnance too close to ground troops causing injury and sometimes death. The Android Team Awareness Kit or ATAK can enable high level situational awareness and accurate PLI. 

Not Another Phone: How Heroes are Saving Lives with ATOS

Some of the hesitancy for implementing ATAK is that it is on an Android system and with IOS being the more popular brand, it would be another device for most people. Additionally, the line workers that can’t be heads down won’t have the capacity to constantly check a EUD. This is where a GPS ATAK enabled tracking tag fits. ATOS or Android Tactical Object Surveillance is a device the size of your thumb can be placed on anything that needs to be accounted for.  The support entities for front line heroes can have access to WINTAK and ATAK at the command center and in the air with a fully enabled system with server access and good reach back. This will allow the team on the ground to focus on their mission. ATOS is here to enable the heroes that are saving lives and supporting the American way of life. 

Interested in Purchasing ATOS or Helping Firefighters?

Read more about ATOS, or contact our Tough Stump team for more information.

Ways to help firefighters and families of fallen firefighters: https://www.firehero.org/ways-to-help/