NYFD Uses Algorithm to Prevent New York Fires

Firefighters have pretty much responded to fires much the same way over the years. They get a call in the middle of the day (or whenever) and they pull on their gear and get in the firetruck to put out the flames. Then they return to the station and do it all again the next time duty calls. Of course there’s much more to a firefighter’s job than I listed and I could never outline it all on a blog. While putting out fires is obviously a huge part of being a firefighter, predicting where the fire might strike next is becoming more and more common. It’s common sense: if you can prevent the fire from starting in the first place, you’ve already saved the day.

New York City is currently trying out a new process to determine where the next fire(s) might start, and it’s not being done in a way you might first think. In fact, it’s fairly technical when you get right down to it.

It’s All About The Numbers

New York City is famous for all of its buildings. Naturally, some of those buildings are much older than others, and are at a greater risk of catching on fire. So, in this technological age, fire departments in New York have started to use a specialized algorithm to predict which buildings might be the next to go up in smoke. If a building ranks high on the list, it gets inspected sooner rather than later. Once its inspected, all of the needed changes can be made to bring the building back up to code. Before they had this capability, many of their inspections were done on a mostly random basis.

Hey, if it’s successful in New York City, it has the potential to work anywhere. Here’s to hoping that it does work and that countless lives and buildings can be saved.

[Image via TheEpochTimes]

SOURCE: http://gizmodo.com/new-york-city-is-fighting-fires-with-data-mining-1509004543