FireWatch(Pre-Alpha): 2006 Southern California Fire Season
FireWatch FAQ
What is FireWatch?
FireWatch is an open platform and service currently being developed by SoCalWeather.Net that will allow both users and developers to share information on fires through a variety of different mediums. The service, which will be provided for free by SoCalWeather.Net, will consist of multiple XML based feeds containing information on both fires and fire conditions throughout Southern California that may be used by both visitors to SoCalWeather.Net as well as other website and service developers.
What kinds of things can be done with FireWatch?
Currently, the pre-alpha "tech-demo" feed for FireWatch is being used in combination with the Google Maps API to display information and the location of fires currently burning throughout Southern California. As we continue to develop the service, features such as RSS feeds for fire conditions, and extensive details on fires, including:
- Live pictures and video blogs
- Evacuation information
- BurnRegions: a geocoded coordinate system for representing the area burnt by a fire
- ConditionRegions: a geocoded coordinate system for representing the various fire danger regions
What is the current status of FireWatch?
At this time, we are hard on work on defining implimenting the core foundation of this new system. Since there are no other publicly available services of this type in existance, we're having to define the entire system from the ground up. While this feed may be used to get an early idea of what a feed could look like, SoCalWeather.Net would like to stress that is is only an early demonstration of the service, and this format will likely drastically change in the near future.
What is this FireWatch SDK?
As part of SoCalWeather.Net's new community-based approach, along with developing interfaces for accessing FireWatch from the SoCalWeather.Net website, we will also be creating a Software Development Kit (SDK) that will not only document the usage and structure of the service, but also provide examples and tools for developing your own tools and interfaces.
Who can use the FireWatch Service and SDK?
Anyone. Any user, website, content provider, developer, etc may use both the FireWatch Service and SDK free of charge, so long as they adhere to any and all licesnses and distribution agreements bound to either product.
Note: SoCalWeather.Net has not yet decided on a license for the FireWatch Service. We ask that for now, if you choose to use the feed as part of any service or website, you please include the following text next to any page using the service:
Where can I give feedback?
Please direct all feedback on FireWatch to this thread in our forum.