SIGNALERT: Free smartphone app for the detection and monitoring of forest fires and their impact in the Mediterranean regions and part of South East Asia

An application for everybody

In association with the start-up SIGNALERT, the unit Mediterranean Ecosystems and Risks (EMAX, in French) of National Institute for Science Research and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA, in French) located near Aix-en- Provence (France), has started operation of its free smartphone application for crowd-mapping and citizen science: SIGNALERT, an app for environmental monitoring. The operation focusing initially on the monitoring of forest fires in the Mediterranean region throughout the summer and fall of 2015 in extended to South East Asia and the operation has been extended to report of Floods, flash floods, rockfalls.

SIGNALERT sarl has developed a smartphone app, downloadable from Google and Apple platforms, allowing everyone to become a sensor and exercise citizen reporting of all types of natural events, including also floods, and 5 other types of phenomenons and their respective impacts. This project is a non-profit action of the company.

The EMAX unit of IRSTEA, partnered with the project by helping to develop the description questionnaire for forest fires. IRSTEA also integrated the questionnaire for avalanches and snow falls with SIGNALERT.

For the user, the operation takes less than a minute to give vital information about the observed phenomenon and its effects. The user's smartphone app provides choices, and the user selects the one closest to what he observes. He can answer every question or he can pass and move to the next, join pictures to his description. The interface is intuitive, and understandable for all users. There are two options for use: the messages can be broadcast immediately or they can be postponed until network coverage is available or the user has left the danger zone. demo mode is available

A utility for everybody

This application allows the centralization of important informations to better locate and describe natural or manmade phenomenon’s intensity and their impacts. These descriptions complement the measures of institutional networks and are designed to increase, in almost real time, the available information. Emergency response, if necessary, may be facilitated through the use of this app. The user can share on a map his description of the phenomenon with other nearby users, and receives back information about the testimonies of other users nearby. They can interact with each other via social networks as well.

Users will also find in the application useful information (adapted behavior and risks before, during and after an event) and can see what other users have been able to send nearby on a map displayed in the app; they can access advice for appropriate behavior and find links to official sites monitoring the situation or sending out alert messages.

The application is currently available in French and English, and will soon be available in Spanish; it works worldwide and allows for the description of low-intensity and scattered phenomena, as well as extreme events. While useful in your home country, it can also be used to help describe phenomena everywhere when travelling near or far from home.

The smartphone app has a paid version that offers the option to receive real-time alert notifications sent by the app from other nearby points of interest chosen by the user (home, vacation destinations…). For now, the monitoring operation covers a large part of the south of France, going over Spain, Portugal and the edge of Italy, and covers Corsica, Sardinia, the Balearic and Canary Islands, Greece and Western Turkey. The coverage was recently extended to a large part of Sumatra, Malaysia, Singapore and Kalimantan.

Reports available to everybody

Citizens with or without the smartphone application can access an open webpage with other user’s alerts via the link below.

This page available in English, Spanish and French displays alerts sent by the App users and provides also the intensity scales used to describe the impact of the observed event and behavior advices also available on the App. The success and effectiveness of this monitoring application is based on the participation of everybody. We invite you to download the SIGNALERT APP (free application) and to use it whenever the opportunity presents itself for forest fires or one of the six other types of natural phenomenon’s covered by the application.

Analysis of the alerts will determine whether the use of this dedicated application allows better characterizing dangerous phenomena. Reports with SIGNALERT can be forwarded on social networks for share with local or remote users, increasing the accuracy of what is shared on Twitter or facebook on disasters which is generally bearing a high degree of uncertainty. SIGNALERT provides an alternative and different approach than Google services in times of crisis.
Any organization private, public, NGO interested in obtaining or broadcasting SIGNALERT alerts content about Forest fires or other phenomena for his own use should contact us.

Signalert App is available on Appstore and Googleplay