We build software for search and rescue work, and we publish what we can so other teams can use it too.
SCCSSAR is an all-volunteer search and rescue team in Santa Clara County, California. The code here came out of real callouts. A drone that could not report its position to the mapping software the ground team was already watching. Flight logs that had to be converted and uploaded into CalTopo by hand after every flight. Photo evidence that had to be downloaded one image at a time from CalTopo, with the coordinates typed in from the screen to support investigations.
Every tool we can release is BSD-3-Clause. Take it, fork it, adapt it to your agency. No attribution ceremony required, and nothing to buy.
caltopo-evidence: Read-only extraction of photos and their metadata from a CalTopo map, producing a checksummed bundle: the original-resolution images, a CSV report, and an integrity manifest recording where every byte came from.
sar-drone-tracker: Puts a Skydio X10's live position into CalTopo, so the ground team tracks the aircraft on the same map they already have open. This is the laptop version, a more robust version is coming soon.
csv_to_kml: Converts Skydio X10 flight telemetry into KML for import into CalTopo.
More is on the way as each tool gets cleaned up for release.
That is what it is for. A few things worth knowing before you do:
- Read the SECURITY.md in each repo before you configure anything. They document real operational risks, including one case where CalTopo accepts position reports with no authentication at all. Those are not boilerplate files.
- Check what the tool actually touches. Each repo states which credentials it needs and at what privilege. Grant the minimum.
- These are volunteer tools, tested on our equipment and our workflows. Try them against your own before you rely on them during a callout.
Questions, bug reports and improvements are all welcome as issues or pull requests on the individual repositories.
Use GitHub private vulnerability reporting on the affected repository, which keeps the report private until there is a fix. If that is not available to you, email bill.burns@sccssar.org. We acknowledge reports within 72 hours.
