An ontology to represent firefighters data requirements during building fire emergencies

Abstract

Firefighters require accurate and timely information regarding a building and its environment to perform their duty safely and successfully during a fire emergency. However, due to the chaotic nature of building fires, firefighters often receive erroneous, conflicting, or delayed information that can affect the outcome of an emergency. In this paper, we propose a solution in the form of an ontology that defines building and environmental data that is needed by firefighters during a building fire emergency. The ontology development followed the METHONTOLOGY method and was implemented using the web ontology language (OWL) in Protégé 5.5.0. Built-in reasoners in Protégé and an ontology pitfall scanning tool were employed to verify the structure and consistency of the new ontology. To validate the ontology efficacy, we developed a prototype web application to represent and visualise relevant information based on the ontology and used that as a basis for conducting interviews with firefighters. Finally, a specification document that describes the ontology was created and published online. The proposed ontology can be a basis for developing intelligent tools and systems that support firefighters.