November 19, 2025 — National GIS Day is an opportunity to recognize the powerful role Geographic Information Systems (GIS) play in emergency management and to highlight the dedicated professionals who bring this data to life every day.

At the Oregon Department of Emergency Management (OEM), GIS is essential to how we prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Our GIS team creates tools, data layers, and visualizations that help decision-makers, partners, and communities understand risks in real time and take informed action.

What Is GIS?

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow us to collect, analyze, visualize, and share data tied to locations on a map. GIS transforms complex information—such as hazards, infrastructure, population impacts, and resource needs—into clear, actionable insights.

In emergency management, GIS helps answer critical questions while providing a common operating picture, which describes:

• Where is the hazard?
• Who and what is impacted?
• What resources are available?
• How are conditions changing?

How OEM Uses GIS

The goal of GIS at our agency is to provide and visualize essential elements of information (EEIs) – getting data in front of decision makers to help inform their decision-making processes. OEM’s GIS staff accomplishes these objectives via:

• Incident maps during ECC activations
• Real-time situational awareness tools
• Hazard layers that support planning and mitigation
• Resource tracking during major response operations
• Community hazard profiles used across agencies and partners

Incident Portfolios

OEM creates disaster-specific incident portfolios that consolidate:

• Emergency Coordination Center/Partner activities
• Mission assignments to state agency partners
• Incident impact areas
• Hazard-specific views of data, like active weather watches/warnings and fire locations
• Damage assessments
• Road closures
• Debris sites
• Infrastructure and utility information

These mapping portfolios help provide a common operating picture, depicting current response activities and efforts underway to help communities respond and recover from these events. These incident portfolios ensure all response partners are on the same page and are sharing information critical to response activities.

These portfolios are templated for OEM to stand up the information sharing component of the Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) quickly, and with a standard interface that allows partners to rely on consistent data sharing, whether it is for an actual event or a simulated exercise.

Disaster Story Maps

OEM GIS’s Disaster Story Maps solution was formed to assist and provide information for part of the disaster declaration process. These interactive narratives provide detailed information about:

• Storm setup – what led to the event happening
• Transportation impacts
• Local and tribal impacts
• Response efforts undertaken
• Mass care response efforts
• Damage assessments/costs of damages
• Declaration information

The Disaster Story Maps communicate complex information in an easy-to-read and understandable format that depicts information necessary for making a federal disaster declaration request. It also features data collected during response efforts to inform recovery processes. Anyone can view these via the Oregon Disaster Story Maps collection.

Real-time Situational Awareness Tools and Data Solutions

Incidents can happen at any time, impacting a variety of communities that we serve. To stay up to date on all activities throughout the state, GIS tools are utilized for situational awareness and represent many of the common hazards we deal with such as flooding, fires, winter storms, earthquakes, or volcanoes. These data come from official sources and represent the impact on those communities. Coupled with key data solutions to collect information from partners, this provides a fuller picture of the degree of impact and who is affected.

Oregon’s evacuation layer solution combines key data from partners and automatically integrates with different evacuation solutions in use within our state to provide a full picture of evacuations in place from these events. This key data is shared to our partners and the public to increase awareness of impacts relating to evacuation activity, regardless of incident type.

The Oregon Hazard Situation Overview provides information in an infographic view, depicting key information about hazards we regularly monitor. Combining data into different dashboards and views allows for a one-stop shop for data about these hazards.

The Real-time Assessment and Planning Tool for Oregon (RAPTOR) displays key data on a centralized map for all common events and hazards within our area in an interactive map.

Oregon’s State Preparedness and Incident Response Equipment (SPIRE) Grant Program utilizes GIS throughout the grant monitoring and tracking process to determine the best location for equipment throughout the state to provide assistance to communities in need of additional support for preparedness and response.

The Natural Hazard Mitigation Status dashboard shows key information for our partners and the public about the work being conducted for the state’s hazard mitigation program and depicts investments at the local level to help communities be prepared for the next event. GIS data is combined with reference information to depict areas with existing hazard mitigation plans and where investments are being allocated throughout the state.

Risk MAP

The Risk Mapping, Assessment, and Planning (Risk MAP) program engages with GIS mapping software to share data resources to inform communities about a variety of risks. Risk MAP makes flood maps that help set flood insurance requirements, and can deliver other hazard datasets, including:

• Water surface elevation and depth grids for different flood levels
• Channel migration zone maps
• Earthquake, landslide, liquefaction, tsunami, and wildfire analysis and risk assessments
• Erosion forecasts

How 9-1-1 Uses GIS

GIS is essential to Oregon's 9-1-1 system. Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) rely on GIS for:

• Accurate caller location
• Next Generation 9-1-1 call routing
• Address management and data validation
• Boundary updates for fire, law, and EMS service areas

Without GIS, 9-1-1 centers wouldn’t have the precision needed to dispatch responders quickly and accurately. In addition, as the 9-1-1 system is modernized, GIS becomes critical for routing emergency calls to the correct Public Safety Answering Point.

Partner Coordination

GIS data is only as valuable as the data coming from authoritative partners. Over time, we have built a community of GIS professionals working within emergency management – because, as we all know, knowing who’s who in the zoo helps us to pull in the right individuals and agencies first to share data and collaborate.

OEM GIS participates in multiple user groups to help provide and share key information. These groups comprise a diverse list of individuals across a wide spectrum, ranging from tribes, locals, state agencies, private sector, non-profits, and other states. We collaborate as a community to build solutions to meet their needs.

Celebrating Our OEM GIS Team

National GIS Day is the time to recognize the experts who make this work possible. OEM is incredibly lucky to have such an incredible team of GIS professionals who work nonstop to ensure our maps, data, and tools are current, accurate, and available when Oregon needs them most.

Daniel Stoelb is the GIS Program Coordinator at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management, where he has served since 2012. With a career in geographic information systems dating back to 2006, including roles at both state and local levels, Daniel has extensive experience in planning, addressing, 9-1-1 data maintenance, and emergency management. Since taking on his current role in 2014, he has focused on implementing innovative technologies to support data-informed decision-making across OEM. His contributions have earned him the 2020 Special Achievement in GIS award from Esri and the 2024 Award for Excellence in Public Safety GIS from the National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation.

Hannah Fattor was born and raised in Portland, OR, and has worked as Oregon’s Risk MAP Coordinator since 2023. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Puget Sound and a Certificate in Data Analytics from the University of Oregon, where she had her first exposure to GIS. Mapping is one tool she uses to communicate with locals throughout Oregon about future risk in their communities, from post-fire debris flows to flood depth grids and river avulsion points that could lead to sudden outburst flooding.

Alex Petzold is the 9-1-1 GIS Coordinator for Oregon’s State 9-1-1 Program, where he has supported Oregon’s 40 PSAPs in procuring GIS and MSAG (Master Street Address Guide) services since 2021. He works directly with 9-1-1 GIS providers to prepare statewide spatial datasets for accurate call routing in Next Generation 9-1-1. He holds an undergraduate in Computer Science from the University of Oregon. His career in public safety began at the City of Eugene Public Works Department, where he helped maintain PSAP map books and created wildfire evacuation maps and brochures, experience that continues to shape his focus on improving the quality and consistency of Oregon’s 9-1-1 GIS data.

Juliana Wold is OEM's 9-1-1 GIS Analyst, where she has worked since 2023. She is a lifelong map lover and earned an undergraduate degree in Geography and Geospatial Science and a certificate in GIS from Oregon State University. In her role, she supports the State 9-1-1 Program with statewide data collection and quality control and works with Oregon's 40 PSAPs to ensure data readiness for Next Generation 9-1-1. Since beginning her role, she has deepened her focus on refining and improving 9-1-1 GIS data statewide.

OEM’s GIS Team:

• Supports statewide activations with real-time mapping
• Produces 24/7 situational awareness dashboards for leadership
• Develops public-facing story maps and preparedness tools
• Maintains critical datasets used across the state
• Partners with PSAPs, counties, Tribes, and state agencies to ensure accuracy, consistency, and accessibility

Their work supports every phase of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. To see more about the work done in emergency management and GIS, take a look at OEM’s GIS Initiatives Collection and OEM’s GIS Hub Site.

Why GIS Matters

Whether it’s planning for winter weather, tracking wildfire evacuations, mapping flood risks, or supporting 9-1-1 accuracy, GIS helps Oregon stay informed and ready.

Today we celebrate the technology and the people who make it possible.

Happy National GIS Day!