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June 30, 2026 — RoGO Communications Launches New DropBlock and Mobile App for GPS tracking of Wildland Firefighters
Colo. OEDIT Release — May 18, 2023 – RoGO has been awarded an Advanced Industries grant from the State of Colorado to enhance our life-saving technologies
Arizona DFFM Release — May 15, 2023 – Arizona Forestry Rolling Out Innovative Firefighter Locating and Accountability System
Juliann Ashcraft, the wife of fallen firefighter Andrew Ashcraft, said the devices will provide Wildland Firefighters with a more collaborative and communicated tactical effort. “Such advances will lead to extinguishing wildfires more efficiently and effectively, and help reduce tragic line of duty deaths, like my husband’s,” Ashcroft said.
New crew locating system to be tested this fire season in Arizona
John Truett, an Arizona state fire management officer, said advances in technology have helped firefighters since then. “We have GPS and satellites and more robust communications,” Truett said. “We didn’t know where the firefighters were. Everybody was scrambling at that time.”
Arizona city holds 10-year remembrance for 19 firefighters who died in the Yarnell Hill Fire
State wildland firefighters added a big tech advancement to their toolbox this year, a GPS tracking system called DropBlocks. Tiffany Davila with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management says these state-of-the-art satellite-based devices allow supervisors to locate crews more precisely while they’re on an incident. That was a challenge 10 years ago after the Granite Mountain crew was initially trapped in the canyon. “Often times our crews are deployed to fight fire in very remote locations, sometimes with little to no cellphone service, so these devices (DropBlocks) provide us another communications channel to reach them,” Davila said.
Here’s how fighting fires in Arizona has changed since Yarnell Hill tragedy 10 years ago
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This fire season, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management will be testing new satellite-based crew locating and communication devices called DropBlocks. These will provide for increased crew accountability and safety during an incident where there may be little to no cell phone or radio service.
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