“From New Zealand I watch the fire in California. Without stepping on the Internet and in the United States” | Digital Change | Technology

A man living in California sees smoking from his home in the woods. Go to social networks, the official channels have not given anything yet, of course not radios or televisions. He begins to tremble. Finally, he found an account on the networks CAFireScanner [escáner de incendios en California] It gives some indication of the purpose and direction of the fire. Michael Sylvester, 30, of Te Aroha, a rural community of about 4,000 people in New Zealand, is the sole manager of ACAFireScanner. And he never left New Zealand, and there was very little going on in California.

Sylvester’s story is an example of the flexibility of the Internet to improve people’s resources: How can a young New Zealander with very specific talents and interests engage them in the most appropriate place for him without leaving home? “I know it’s crazy, but the technology available helps me a lot, which is not the case in other parts of the world,” he says. Sylvester case Revealed by the press Wire, He sent a photographer home to take pictures from behind him. When interviewed by Sylvester via EL PAÍs video call, he advised that he would like to continue to maintain the physical anonymity of his account.

Sylvester’s interest in this world emerges from his fascinating listening to police and fire stations in his spare time. “One of the things that makes this so interesting is that you never know what will happen and the two days will not be the same,” he explains. As a teenager he started listening to these broadcasts with his firefighter father. So his hobby grew. He gradually realized that America was paradise for those interested in listening to the officers’ stations, “in many places it is encrypted, it is illegal or you have to go through a lot of bureaucracy,” he explains.

In Spain, according to David Marugan, a radio communications expert, broadcasting over the security forces’ frequencies is illegal: “It is strictly forbidden in Spain. It is technically certain frequencies because they are not encrypted and it is completely illegal. The Public Telecommunications Act indicates that both listening and broadcasting are prohibited. Spanish law is closer to the norm in other parts of the world, where the United States is the exception: “It’s generally the same in countries other than the United States. Players broadcast it openly, ”says Marugan.

One page is your main tool for monitoring California fires broadcastify.com, Normal users upload unrestricted threads of their local stations to the Internet. Silvester has the best broadcasts in your browser “favorites”. Sylvester uses a tool called PulsePoint, which broadcasts emergency signals from across the United States, from a neighbor’s heart arrest to a fire, to find out what’s to follow in California’s approximately 800 fire departments. “These information announcements are early warnings of local threats such as wildfires, floods and utility emergencies,” the source said. In the Android Play Store.

Each phone with the PulsePoint utility provides information for 25 services. Covering almost all of California, Sylvester has four mobiles connected to 100 services. If the alarm goes off, you will be alerted. Sylvester has a degree in computer science, so it’s easy for him to write a small program to automate his processes. He makes telecommunications from home to an American company, and finds it easy to arrange for a fire to cover the winter in California from May to October, when winter in New Zealand and Sylvester is less interested in going out. “It always rains here in the winter,” he says.

California is a very suitable area for this type of coverage. In addition to open emergency organizations, there are large numbers of people living in rural areas. @CAFireScanner has over 100,000 followers: “Most people are affected. Other states have fewer people and more information is very difficult to obtain. California has a very unique system. That system really benefits me, ”says Sylvester. His account is the main account covering the whole state, but a few individuals are closely monitoring the activities in their districts or counties. They are part of what is known “Fire Twitter” Or “Fire Twitter”.

These coincidences lead to other great accounts from your districts or regions in California. But only Sylvester is taking care of the whole area. In addition to application and direct use, it uses a series of sources of weather or seaplane aircraft to assist in intuitioning the evolution of fire. “I was particularly aware of the air, temperature and humidity,” he says. Tabs are always open in your browser with weather details and page Plane Radar24, Firefighters learn planes in the aircraft area. Your third essential tool in the browser is a page with hundreds of webcams. “Another great resource in California is the Wildfire Camera Network. They have 800 cameras Areas most affected by the fire around California and they point the camera at the fire very quickly. So you can see where the fire is and how big it is, ”he says.

Official channels usually limit their communications to the time of the official press conference and not above the same level as Sylvester. “I do not criticize them or anything, but I will say that they do not have the real nuance of the description. These fire agencies have to monitor their small area, they are there. They do not know what is happening on the other end of the state. I know, and I’ll take care of where the dangerous points are, and that’s what I read, so if I see a fire in one of those areas, it’s going to be primarily in my head. Sylvester implemented A conglomerate financial system Dozens of people have donated and sent messages of appreciation: “I trust your experience with every California fire season” or “Fantastic job, glad you’re out.”

Sylvester began his specific career for California in 2016. He changed his Twitter name to @CAFireScanner and began his information mission. In Life He recalled from his Twitter account that “tweets are not official and should not be considered as such”. His goal is to provide that information in the event that any detail saves a life: “I tell them where the fire is going, so the people who live there are fleeing their homes, which is my main goal. I tell people, people look at the smoke as a summary of what is going on, ”he says.

With technology, there is something else that sets Sylvester’s work apart: the size of the fire. “I started with enthusiasm in 2016, but things got serious in 2017 with the Thomas fire. It’s the biggest in modern history. But there are seven more after that. Today it is only the eighth number. In November 2018, outside of the regular fire season, none of those eight were bad. That day Sylvester went to bed unaware of the catastrophic death toll of 85 in New Zealand. Since then, he has developed an alarm system to wake him up if something big happens. Sylvester agrees that his life would be much easier and easier if he simply closed his Twitter account. “But what do I do?” He wonders.

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