Drawing on the Map: District Lines, Areas & Boundaries

The Map in the sidebar shows your whole district in one place: stations, hydrants, pre-plans and the symbols your members have placed. You can also draw on it. Trace your district line, outline a first-due area, mark a road that floods or a burn-ban zone, and everyone in your department sees it.

If your department has uploaded official boundary files, the Map can show those too, as outlines you can turn on and off.

Drawing a Line or an Area

The toolbar at the top of the Map has four tools:

The keys are single letters. Press just the letter, with no Ctrl, Cmd or Windows key held down.

To draw an area

1. Choose Polygon (or press P).
2. Click or tap each corner of the area, in order.
3. To finish, click the first point again. The area closes and is saved.

To draw a line

1. Choose Line (or press L).
2. Click or tap each point along the line.
3. To finish, double-click, or select Done below the map.

While you're drawing, Undo below the map (or Backspace) removes the last point you placed, and Escape throws the drawing away so you can start over.

Tip: Zoom in before you trace a boundary that follows a road or a creek. Every point lands exactly where you click, so a closer view gives you a closer match.

Naming and Editing What You've Drawn

When you finish a line or an area, it's selected and a bar opens below the map. From there you can:

• Name it, such as "District 4" or "Low-water crossing". The name shows on the map.
• Pick a color, so districts, hazards and access routes read differently at a glance.
• Add notes, such as who maintains a road or when a zone applies.
• Attach photos, the same way you would on a symbol.

The bar also shows the size of what you drew: the area of a polygon or the length of a line.

To move a line or an area later, choose Select, then drag it. To delete one, select it and press Delete, or use the delete button in the toolbar. You'll be asked to confirm.

Anyone in your department who can add symbols to the Map can draw lines and areas, and can edit the ones they drew. Officers and administrators with broader map permissions can edit everyone's.

Where drawings appear

Lines and areas you draw appear on the department Map only. They don't appear on pre-plan maps or the incident map, and they aren't shared with mutual-aid partner departments.

Showing Your Uploaded Boundaries

If your department has uploaded boundary files, the Map can draw them as outlines:

• Jurisdictions, such as your fire district, city limits or county, appear in amber.
• Station areas, each station's response area, appear in red.

Boundaries are uploaded as a zipped shapefile or a GeoJSON file. Your county or city GIS office can usually provide your district boundary in one of these formats. To add them:

• Jurisdictions: an administrator uploads them under Settings → GIS & Geofencing.
• Station areas: open the station's page and use the Response Area Boundary card.

Uploaded boundaries do more than draw on the Map. Incidents inside a jurisdiction are tagged with it automatically, and incidents inside a station's area get that station filled in as the responding station.

The Map draws each boundary as a lightly simplified outline that's easy to read at any zoom, so treat it as a guide rather than a survey line. Incident tagging always uses the full detail of the file you uploaded. You can't reshape a boundary on the Map. To change one, upload a new file. If your department has turned off Station Response Areas in settings, station areas don't appear on the Map.

Choosing What the Map Shows

Select Filter in the Map's toolbar to choose which layers appear:

• Stations, Hydrants and Pre-Plans
• Shapes: every line and area your department has drawn
• Jurisdictions and Station areas: your uploaded boundaries, once you've added some
• Each symbol category, such as Fire Protection or Water Supply

Each row shows how many items are in that layer. Turning a layer off only hides it from your view of the Map. It doesn't delete anything or change what anyone else sees.