[frogblast]

I'm not involved in firefighting, I just spend a lot of time with maps planning out hikes:

I find that paper maps are dramatically better for me than anything on a screen, simply because they can be so much bigger and higher resolution at the same time. It is far easier to get a feel for an area on a table-top sized map printed at high PPI than on my 4K 27" monitors.

As for rapidly tracking the fire perimeters: Despite what the original article says, this mapping process is already happening. You can see the very outlines updated daily, with lots of fine detail, on inciweb.

[klyrs]

When I was in search and rescue, we made extensive use of paper maps. Nice rite-in-the-rain jobbers, useful in a downpour. And sometimes we'd need to take notes on them. With a pencil! In the rain! grumble grumble kids these days. Try that with a capacitive touchscreen...

[duiker101]

I am one of the kids of these days, but I know absolutely nothing about anything so I don't mean this in a mean spirited way but I am genuinely curious:

if you have paper in the rain, can't you have a water resistant device? Generally, they are both thing that I wouldn't necessarily associate with doing well in the rain...

[vidanay]

Try this: Put on your winter gloves, climb in the the shower, turn the water on ice cold, and see how well you are able to operate your iPad.

At least with paper maps and a #2 pencil, you have a fighting chance in those conditions.

[klyrs]

My phone works fine in the rain. The touchscreen is garbage, because it can't differentiate my finger from a puddle on the screen. Granted, there are pressure sensitive touchscreens out there. If you want a good map that you can take notes on, you'll need a custom app. In my experience, writing on screens is very fussy business. So you might be able to a custom app, custom hardware, maybe spending thousands per unit.

But, paper. I mentioned a brand name. It's wonderful stuff, nothing like the paper you're thinking of. This solution costs a few bucks per person.

https://www.riteintherain.com/

Edit: this "rain" crap is a digression from the "fire" problem. I don't have experience there, but I imagine "the electric infrastructure and cell towers burnt down" is more of an issue... again, paper and pencil wins.

[TeMPOraL]

> Edit: this "rain" crap is a digression from the "fire" problem. I don't have experience there, but I imagine "the electric infrastructure and cell towers burnt down" is more of an issue... again, paper and pencil wins.

WRT. paper vs. touchscreens and fire, I imagine two extra factors come into play. One, protective equipment may not play well with touchscreens (are there capacitive screen-friendly pads for gloves that won't burn off?). Two, heat in general. Phones and tablets don't like it all that much, and can easily start behaving weirdly and/or shut down when being used in a car in summer, much less next to an actual fire.

[cinntaile]

Nowadays decent hiking maps are made of Tyvek or a similar material so they're waterproof. A water resistant device works too but not as well when there are raindrops on it. I guess the moisture messes with the capacitive screen, the device can also stop working at a really incovenient time. That can't really happen with a regular map.

[superhuzza]

Same in my experience, for both climbing and hiking paper maps and topos are much better than digital.

[jbay808]

And the paper map doesn't run out of batteries!