In the future, your car will be able to warn you of nearby forest fires.

Officials are working on a system to send alerts directly to the car’s infotainment systems. Here is how it will work.

Late last summer day, a small number of pre-selected drivers in Fairfax County, Va., were given an emergency testing alert warning of a bogus wildfire in their area. But that message didn’t just come through a beep or buzz on their phones – it was also relayed directly to the infotainment consoles in their cars, and a “fire zone” zone appeared on their on-screen maps. These test messages were intended to be a live demonstration of a multi-year project to update wildfire emergency warnings. Although wireless emergency alerts have been available on mobile phones for over a decade, there is currently no way to send them directly to car screens. The hope for this new system is that having in-vehicle warnings can help authorities reach people who live in areas at risk from wildfires — people who are otherwise difficult to notify with other warning methods. Specifically, this pilot project focuses on the “wildlife-urban interface” or WUI. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), WUI areas are any neighborhoods or residential communities on the edge of undeveloped land, or even interspersed with them. In the United States, more than 46 million homes are at increased risk of wildfires due to their location in the RFI. When a wildfire does break out in these areas, it can be especially difficult to notify residents. Often houses in WUI regions are scattered, making methods such as sirens or knocking on the door less viable. These areas also tend to have limited reception and internet connectivity, which may mean that residents are not getting alerts on their cell phones. And even if the alerts come, they usually don’t provide direction information to get to a safe place. Several WUI communities have reported a lack of sufficient wildfire warnings in recent years, including those affected by the 2018 Camp Fire in California and the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado. In some cases, community members in such areas have even developed their own apps and outlets to bridge this gap. Norman Speicher said after he learned of the disappointment of residents after the Marshall fire, his office began to explore other notification options. Speicher works for the Department of Homeland Security as a program manager for the Office of Science and Technology (S&T), which is the research and development arm of DHS. His team wanted to find new ways to “get the message where people are already,” Speicher says, and was interested in the idea of ​​sending messages directly to car infotainment systems, which are built-in screens that can display your connected phone. , GPS services and other information about your vehicle. The August 2022 trial in Virginia was the first (almost) real test of this idea, which S&T calls the WUI integration model. While it is still under development, Speicher is confident the team will eventually be able to create a system that can generate a virtual map of future wildfires and warn drivers in nearby areas to stay away. He hopes that one day he will even be able to help drivers leave safely. But achieving this goal requires not only new technologies, but also blazing trails through the worlds of warnings and automotive systems, while not losing sight of what makes a warning message successful.

Understanding Existing Alarms

The WUI integration model is part of an alert system that Jeannette Sutton describes as “complex”. As an adjunct professor at the State University of New York at the Albany College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity, Sutton explores everything related to emergency alerts, from official public warnings to social media posts. She explains that there are several basic ways to warn the public about natural disasters in the United States. There are public alerts that require no effort on the part of residents, such as sirens, roadside billboards, and messages sent over radio or television. There are also additional measures, such as following emergency agencies on social media and certain apps or messaging systems that emergency managers in some municipalities use to send messages to local residents. In addition, there is a wireless emergency alert system that sends geo-targeted messages directly to your mobile phone. This acts as a fail-safe, meaning all compatible phones will receive these alerts unless someone takes action to turn them off. (For example, if you have an iPhone, you can check your settings by going to Settings, then selecting Notifications and scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page until you see the Government Alerts section.) 11 years since the launch of this program The Federal Communications Service Commission says it has released more than 70,000 messages with important information. To actually get these wireless emergency alerts on your mobile phone, emergency workers use the FEMA Integrated Public Address and Alert System, or IPAWS, which is sort of a one-stop-shop for all national broadcast alerts. Emergency service officials create messages understandable by IPAWS, which are then sent to the appropriate alert pipeline, whether it be wireless emergency alerts to cell phones or radio and television broadcasts. This system is also a key player in the new WUI integration model.

From IPAWS to your infotainment system

To bridge the gap between IPAWS and automotive consoles, S&T began working with FEMA, consulting firm Corner Alliance, and HAAS Alert, a digital automotive and traffic alert company. Speicher said these partnerships were especially helpful in understanding how infotainment centers function. He describes this particular segment of the auto industry as “the Wild West” as different automakers have different approaches – some develop their own infotainment consoles while others work with third-party vendors. In addition, there are various systems that can be integrated with infotainment centers such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Speicher says his team has been able to develop a system that will serve automotive brands working with Stellantis, an automaker whose brands include Chrysler, Jeep and a host of others. A multi-company partnership works with HAAS acting as a conduit between the IPAWS system outpost and Stellantis. So, when a disaster occurs, the model works like this: the emergency manager creates the necessary alert in IPAWS, from where it is added to the feed on the open platform. HAAS then receives the message, decodes and processes it, and then redistributes it to Stellantis, which in turn sends the message to its vehicle network. From there, the location services in the Stellantis infotainment consoles determine if an alert is appropriate to display. In the case of a demonstration last summer, the Fairfax Office of Emergency Management in Virginia sent out a test alert that was distributed via infotainment consoles to other project team members who drove within a one-mile radius of the false fire. Speicher says the test was useful as a proof of concept, but also helped identify additional needs and opportunities for future development. One of Speicher’s main areas of interest is working with navigation services such as Google Maps and Waze. Both navigation systems currently offer basic alerts that indicate areas where hazards such as fires or floods exist, but Speicher says he is looking to explore partnerships with these providers that may allow more specific navigation suggestions to be offered in the future. This may include not only pointing out the danger, but also instructions on how to avoid or get away from it. Speicher says they are also looking into sending alerts when someone leaves the fire zone, as well as figuring out how these console alerts can be translated into other languages.

Composing a message

From Sutton’s perspective as a risk communications researcher, the biggest question with this new model is how the actual messages look and sound. In her experience, this is a critical area that has traditionally been overlooked in the past when it comes to developing emergency alerts. For example, she says that early wireless emergency alerts didn’t really motivate people to take protective action—she and other researchers found that people were more likely to seek out more information instead. IPAWS has since changed the character limit and better targeted its messages to make alerts clearer to recipients. With this new WUI integration model, Sutton believes that delivery and alert design is particularly important given the fact that recipients will be driving. This means that the message must be easily and accurately understood. “They also need to address potential issues that could arise when people are notified of an important event at an inconvenient moment,” Sutton added, as the typical warning sounds or display used on mobile phones can be too annoying for the driver. In an S&T press release about the program, Speicher said that such behavioral science is taken into account when developing the model, with the goal of creating a “standardized messaging format” that can be easily recognized by drivers.

What’s next and what can you do now

Speicher says the next test of the WUI integration model is currently slated for July, and he teased a number of other emergency messaging developments that are also in the works, including a way to distribute alerts through streaming providers like Netflix or Hulu. But for now, there are several ways to increase the likelihood of receiving relevant emergency alerts. Experts highly recommend using these wireless emergency alerts, which are generally the best way to stay in the know. If you turned them off in the past and want to turn them back on, check your phone settings for both emergency and public safety alerts. You can also search your state or local emergency department to better understand the risks in your area and any opportunities to stay informed. In some cases, you can download additional applications for more specialized alerts, such as ShakeAlert, an earthquake alert system for the Western states.