Silicon Valley’s innovation engine has been slow to produce useful new tools to help firefighters like Dave Winnacker extinguish the deadly blazes that each year fill California’s skies with smoke.

Winnacker, a fire district chief who led a team against the 2017 fires that scorched vineyards in Napa and Sonoma Valley, is interested in tools that can spot fires early and ease evacuations.

But startups aiming to help improve public safety have found it hard to find funding from traditional venture capital investors, who don’t see a lot of money to be made selling to cash-strapped fire departments.

One piece of tech Winnacker is using? An evacuation platform by startup Zonehaven that links up maps, fire and police departments, dispatch, and residents to communicate and evacuate. It debuted in August when fires started by a lightning storm in California burned in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.

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