What's new in CERES 3.0
CERES 3.0 turns CERES into a complete emergency response platform for fire and chemical incidents: incident command, crew accountability and the ICS forms now sit alongside the models, the tools and the live data. This page lists what is new since version 2.7, the last release with published notes (February 2024). Everything here is live at ceres.vlahi.com today; items marked PRO need a paid product.
New in October 2026
Added since the first CERES 3.0 notes, and live today.
- Public alerts and control zones. A CAP 1.2 public alert drafted from a run's zones and sent by call-down, and hot, warm and cold zones on the incident map, suggested from the run.
- Incidents from dispatch. CERES reads dispatch emails and text pages, places the call on the map, checks the Tier II facilities nearby and declares or updates the incident.
- Chat, video and documents on the incident. Everyone put on an incident joins its channel, video calls start from any channel, and CERES Docs and Sheets are written together and kept with the incident record.
- Gas Detectors board. Readings, alarms, a chart per gas and a wall of device screens; every alarm numbered, with a verification countdown and its handling status; signed exposure records per person on the paid plans.
- Releases inside a building. The Direct, Puddle, Tank and Gas Pipe wizards model a release in a room, with the exhaust and the outdoor plume it makes.
- Fires and smoke. EV fires and flares on the map, jet fires with their lift-off and tilt, the BLEVE blast from the burst's expansion energy, heat levels shown as a surface temperature, and, on the paid plans, fire smoke and gases on the map.
- Rivers, rail, roads and pipelines. Rivers with their flow direction and a downstream trace, oil spills that follow the river past dams, railroads, roads and neighborhoods from OpenStreetMap, and NPMS pipelines with a scenario on every corridor.
- The ground under the plume. Elevation from USGS and national lidar services first, an elevation profile in the ruler, the ground charted along the plume and in the report, and a warning when the ground is too uneven for a flat-ground model.
- Twelve new tools. Vehicle Rescue Sheets, Indoor Release, Mass ↔ Volume, Technical Decon, Disinfectant Finder, Public Alert, Video Recordings, Air Monitoring and Sampling, Gas Detectors, Tier II Facilities, Pipelines and Detector Coverage.
- 11 languages. English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Romanian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Malay and Hebrew (Hebrew by link), including the help; every language but English on paid plans.
- Training. Six story missions, an ammonia cargo-tank rollover and a radiological mission among them, and fifteen Basics lessons, with PPE, decon, radiation and blast standoff added.
- Personnel Manager. Every responder's own exposure record, started automatically at the On Scene check-in: time on scene, the gas readings around them, warm-zone and overhaul time and their own statement, with a member view, an officer view and a download.
- Preliminary Exposure Reduction (NFPA 1851). Each member logs the on-scene steps from the phone: decon method, gear bagged, shower within the hour, lithium-ion fires marked. The entry joins their exposure record.
- Infectious Disease, free on every plan. Recognize 56 diseases in the field from contact, travel, signs and red flags; protection and isolation precautions from the CDC (Appendix A) and the EMS playbook, each line sourced; outbreak notices from CDC, WHO, ECDC and NaTHNaC.
- Screening tubes and test papers. The detector tubes (by name or order number) and test papers (pH, KI, fluoride, M8, M9, water-finding) your team carries, kept in Agency Equipment, are starred and listed first in Detector Correction and the Chemical Profile; Polytest, Acid and Amine tubes are linked to the chemicals they react to.
- Air Monitoring and Sampling. Each meter with its own sensors and unit number, readings logged in a few taps with gloves on, monitoring points on the map, test-paper results, a field-screening gate with a Word report, and samples with chain of custody kept in CERES Docs, all sealed into the activity log and feeding the sensor-driven plume.
- Decon in the field. A decon-line planner, the product label's mixing card with the dilution, timers, first aid for the chemical, FEMA AEL numbers for grant requests, an EPA label watch, and drug-lab, dive and K9 decon guidance.
- Detector Correction. Now with the Dräger CatEx LEL tables and 604 Kitagawa, Dräger and Gastec detector tubes.
A new application
On the desktop, the tablet and the phone.
- A rebuilt interface. The map, the scenario wizard and every panel were rebuilt for today's browsers, with the same map on the truck laptop, the tablet and the phone.
- Help in 11 languages. A new help system in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Romanian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Malay and Hebrew (Hebrew by link), every language but English on paid plans, with metric or US units per user.
- Sign-in. Sign in with a Microsoft, Google or Apple account, and turn on two-factor authentication per site.
- Mobile apps. The iOS and Android apps open the same CERES, with push notifications and background location, so responders can share their position while responding.
- Share links. Share a run, a tool result or the incident's common operating picture with a link that mutual-aid partners open without an account; they see only what you publish.
Incident command
For the officer who has to account for everyone.
- Command Board. Drag crews onto assignments, run a PAR in one tap, track air and work-cycle timers, call a MAYDAY, and let the ICS 214 log write itself; the board keeps working without a connection.
- Ten FEMA ICS forms. The ICS 202, 203, 204, 205, 208 and 214 are filled in from the incident record, the 201 briefing, the 207 organization chart and the 211 check-in list come from the board, and the 233 tracks open actions.
- People. My Status from the phone, a team status board with PAR roll calls, a roster that responders join with a QR code, location shared only while responding, and a responder emergency alarm.
- The record. An incident log whose entries are chained, so any later change shows; an IAP packet; an after-action export; and a public link to the common operating picture.
- CERES Chat. Channels for the incident and the team, with @mentions and push notifications to the phone.
- The rest of the command post. An NFPA 1584 rehab tracker, an incident sketch with NIMS symbols, costs checked against published rate schedules, and call-down notification with a delivery log for every recipient.
- 95 tools in nine groups. From placard to triage to foam supply, grouped by the question each tool answers, each naming the standard or study behind its numbers. Most are free.
- Attached to the incident. Every result lands in the incident record, and a read-only link shares any result.
- Learn as you go. A how-to tour on every tool, most with a practice mode, and your agency's equipment pinned where it matters.
- Chemicals. Identify a chemical by name, UN number, placard, CAS or symptoms; the Chemical Profile shows NIOSH, CAMEO, DOT and OSHA data with the source on every line; plus SDS search and pesticide lookup.
Training
Practice without paging anyone.
- Story missions. Staged incidents played with the real tools on a private exercise incident: guided to learn, or tested to earn a qualification that expires.
- Lessons. Basics lessons on the workspace, chemicals, levels of concern, weather and running models, and incident-command lessons on taking command, the roster and the record, and accountability.
- For the chief. A team matrix, curricula and assignments with due dates.
- A new modeling engine. CERES now runs its own implementation of the ALOHA 5.4 source, dispersion, heavy-gas and fire models by default, with up to four levels of concern, wind-confidence lines and threat at a point.
- ERG 2024. The 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook replaces the 2020 edition, including the tables for chemical-warfare agents, drawn on the map and turned to the live wind.
- PRO Fire and explosion. A BLEVE calculator with time to tank failure and cooling-water guidance, boilover (INERIS), battery energy storage fires with their HF plume, vapor-cloud explosions in congested areas (Baker-Strehlow-Tang), gas-cylinder bursts and liquid-pipeline jet fires.
- PRO Radiological. Nuclear detonation with fallout, and dirty bombs (radiological dispersal devices).
- PRO Spills, smoke and reactions. Oil spills on water, fire smoke with soot and sulfur dioxide, binary reactions between two chemicals, and liquid pipeline releases.
Live data
Your equipment and the public feeds on one map.
- Detectors. Industrial Scientific iNet and AccuSense join Blackline Live and Honeywell Safety Suite, and a new MQTT link connects CERES data-acquisition units.
- Public feeds. Weather radar, weather alerts, air quality, wildfires, earthquakes, flood gauges, tsunami warnings, power outages, boom sites and hydrants, each switched on by the site administrator.
- Weather. The Weather Company conditions and forecasts, nearest station first, and Incident Weather: the forecast read as a hazmat size-up.