Google has just announced a new Google Maps feature that expands the company’s SOS feature, also available on Google Search, with new capabilities.
This time, the focus is on wildfires, with Google Maps and Google Search now displaying SOS alerts to show the approximate boundary of the fire, name and location, roads that might be closed due to the blaze, as well as news articles that provide users with additional information on what’s happening.
Furthermore, Google Maps can issue alerts if users are getting closer to an active wildfire, while someone who uses the service to explore a specific region where a blaze is known to exist is provided with an ambient alert that includes additional information.
Google says it has previously tested these new features last year for the major wildfires that started in California, and now the company says that it’s rolling it out publicly to everyone.
Also impressive is that Google is trying to keep the data nearly real time, all using satellite information that helps them update the maps as the wildfires expand.
“With satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES constellation of satellites and Google Earth Engine’s data analysis capabilities, we’re now able to show the size of a wildfire in near real time, with data being refreshed roughly every hour. NOAA’s satellites include infrared and optical sensors optimized for detecting ‘hot spots’ or large wildfires on the Earth’s surface. We run computations on this data in Earth Engine to identify the affected area,” Google explains.
For the time being, the new SOS alerts in Google Search and Google Maps are only available for users in the United States, but the Mountain View-based search giant says it’s already working to bring them to other countries too. Of course, no specifics are available for the time being, but more information should be shared as the work in this regard advances.
