Software developed in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings to allow emergency personnel to conduct a virtual survey of a building will be tested in Sparks.

The software, developed by Littleton Fire Department Capt. Jim Olsen in summer 1999, is being tested and fine-tuned in communities across the West by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Olsen’s invention, called “pre-incident planning system software,” uses a CD-ROM to provide law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics with a virtual walk-through of a building, complete with 360-degree panoramic view. When the template is filled out with building information, the interactive floor plans also allows them to click on a part of a building and see the actual hallway or room.

It includes school hours, the number of students, contact information and locations of fire hydrants and electrical, water and gas switches.

Sparks High School will be one of the pilot schools to test the new software.

“It provides a visual picture of the interior and exterior of the school,” said Steve Mulvenon, Washoe County School District spokesman.

The plan is to have the software for every school in the district, he said.

“One of the problems they encountered at Columbine was they didn’t know where the library was, how to get there or what sort of doors were between them and the library,” Mulvenon said of law enforcement’s response to the April 20, 1999 tragedy in Littleton, Colo.

In one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings, gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris fatally shot 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before killing themselves in the school’s library.

The Washoe County School District already provides local police, fire departments and paramedics with copies of the floor plans and site layouts of all its schools, Mulvenon said.

“But that doesn’t show them if a door is metal or wooden, or if it has a window or not. So what they’re going to do is go inside and take digital images of the whole place and put it on a CD-ROM,” he said.

“Then, when Mr. Policeman or Mr. Fireman rolls up to a building, he can put it in his laptop and see how to get to Point A or Point B and what obstacles are in the way.”

Jim Parry, Carson City School District superintendent, said the software isn’t being tested in his district.

“We haven’t heard of it, but that sounds very interesting.”

The school district did begin a program this past semester to bring in four-man teams of sheriff’s deputies to respond to mock crisis situations at each of its schools so they can become familiar with the layout of each building.

“We’re trying to get all the deputies in so that every deputy has some sense of the layout of the schools because you don’t know who will be on or off duty in any given shift,” Parry said.

“The whole theme is to stop the violence, whatever that is, and to inform them of the nooks and crannies of every school, because that’s very important.”

Olsen said the software he developed is confidential and won’t be on the Internet. Only law enforcement agencies, local school districts and building managers will have access to the plans.

The Littleton Fire Department already has three fire trucks equipped with software for 29 area schools and businesses.

Olsen said he has been doing demonstrations of the software for several months. FEMA saw a demonstration and decided to take on the project as part of its Partners Assuring Safer Schools program.

Although Columbine underscored the need for the system, Olsen said he believes it would have eventually been developed anyway.

El Paso County and six other communities in five states will receive the blank template and must fill it out by shooting pictures of the building with a digital camera, Olsen said. He estimated it will take 10 to 12 hours to create a walk-through for an elementary school and 20 hours for a high school.

The communities will test the software for about three months. After the testing is complete, the software will be released nationwide.

“This is great for training. For example, someone would be able to preview safety plans for the next Olympics. It’s a long-range, long-term system,” Olsen said.

The other communities participating are Bozeman, Mont.; Corvallis, Ore.; Sioux Falls, S.D., Watertown S.D; and Casper and Natrona County, Wyo.