Why try to convert when actually 'on the job'? What does converting achieve,
when you're communicating only with others who are also talking metric? All
this does is (a) slow down your understanding of the metric system (or anything
new, for that matter), (b) increase the probability of errors, which, in this
particular snenario, could have serious consequences, and (c) slow down your
overall performance, again not what is wanted in a fast moving situation like
the wildfires.
I wonder if the Australian authorities gave out any training to those from the
US on metric units, and using the UTM?
----- Original Message -----
From: John M. Steele
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 12:44 PM
Subject: [USMA:44121] Firefighter return to S. Oregon after battling
Australian wildfires
A brief news article:
http://kdrv.com/news/local/101516
Brief quote:
"The biggest challenge Mitchell says he faced was adapting to the
metric system and doing quick conversions."
I guess he was not trained in (or does not use) the US National Grid.
For those not familiar with the USNG, it is a modification of Universal
Transverse Mercator mapping. 100 km squares are designated with letters (and
over very large area with UTM zone and latitude band) so that coordinates
within a square are <100000 m. The tiling of lettered 100 km squares is
similar to the MGRS used by the US military and NATO allies.
There has been an initiative (obviously not very successful) to train
first responders in USNG and use it as the ONLY location coordinates in
emergencies. The main reason is to avoid numerous local coordinate systems
that will not be understood by emergency responders brought in from other areas.
Had he been trained and used USNG adapting to Australian mapping would
have been trivial. Perhaps it should be a training requirement for
firefighters certified to work outside their local area.
NOTE: You can't cover a round earth with squares, so adjustments are
required. UTM zones are 6° of longitude wide, and incomplete squares exist
along the zone edges.
