During the recent summer forest fire season, San Diego State University’s Homeland Security program developed a geographic information system that makes GIS data available to firefighters in the field in near real-time - even when they do not have wireless or landline networks available. These datasets, designed for firefighters specifically, are formatted for satellite delivery and include satellite and aerial imagery, weather radar and topographical data in a format optimized for delivery over the Inmarsat Plc. Broadband Global Area Network.

http://gcn.com/articles/2009/09/08/gis-wildfire.aspx