• The Alerts IV project will be in the testing phase all summer and will subsequently be implemented citywide

• The app was developed by the Valencia City Council as part of the GovTech projects of Valencia Innovation Capital

• This morning, firefighters and residents conducted a fire drill in one of the towers in El Saler, using the app

• Valencia will launch its summer fire prevention operation on June 15 and plans to reinforce the El Saler Fire Station in the event of a Level 3 pre-emergency

Valencia is launching a trial of the Alertas IV pilot project in the Devesa de El Saler neighborhood—a proprietary app that enables real-time communication between emergency services and people affected by a fire in a high-rise building. This technological app was developed as part of the GovTech projects of Valencia Innovation Capital with the goal of facilitating communication in high-rise buildings or those with a high density of residences, as it enables real-time conversation between firefighters and affected residents, provides instant information on incidents, evacuation routes, and recommendations for action, and helps improve decision-making in critical situations.

To test this new app, a fire drill was conducted in El Saler using this new technology, which serves as an example of an urban sandbox. This allowed for the testing of an innovative solution in a real-world setting to provide a more effective response to the public and to train coordination among the various emergency services in the event of a wildfire affecting urban areas.

The company that developed the app is Armonia Tech Solutions SLU, and it did so with a budget of 50,000 euros. In addition, the app incorporates accessibility features to make it easier for vulnerable groups—such as people with hearing impairments, elderly people who require care, and people with autism, among others—to receive and understand alerts. The app is currently being tested and will be gradually rolled out throughout the city by the end of the summer.

Mayor María José Catalá, accompanied by Juan Carlos Caballero, the councilor for Fire Prevention and Suppression, and José Gosálbez, the councilor for Devesa-Albufera, and the Councilwoman for Innovation, Paula Llobet, took part this morning in a forest fire drill in the Devesa de El Saler, which provided an opportunity to test the app’s functionality. The mayor stated that “this is an app that residents can download to their cell phones, allowing them to communicate directly with the fire department, receive instructions directly from the fire department, provide directions, and get information—making it an excellent system for rapid and direct communication. “And what happens if we lose cell service? Well, we’ve acquired several satellite antennas so that, in the event of a complete failure of communication systems, communications can continue as normal.”

María José Catalá expressed her satisfaction, stating, “This is the first time we’ve launched a technology challenge, and a startup has won it; now we’ll incorporate it into the public system because we haven’t found anything similar on the market. In other words, we analyzed the needs of firefighters, we analyzed the situation we had experienced, and, since there was no off-the-shelf technology that met our needs, we developed it ourselves. It is a truly pioneering technology unique to the city of Valencia, but it is also a technology that can be adopted by other cities and shared.”