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Case Study | Public Safety & Emergency Response

Powering Connectivity During the Palisades & Eaton Fires

Full base-camp connectivity — internet, Wi-Fi, and cellular. Restored in minutes when local infrastructure was gone.

Wildfire Base-Camp Connectivity
Rapid Deployment
Multi-Agency Coordination

Minutes

TO FULL DEPLOYMENTS

Thousands

OF RESPONDERS SUPPORTED

Zero

DEPENDENCY ON LOCAL INFRA

Sector

Public Safety / Emergency Response

Customer

Multi-agency wildfire incident command

Geography

Los Angeles area — Palisades and Eaton fires (January 2025)

Deployment

Rapid-deploy Contrivian Horizon™ kits across multiple base camps

Stack

Contrivian Horizon™, Contrivian Lighthouse™, Starlink LEO, FirstNet, Verizon Frontline, Mesh Wi-Fi

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

The Challenge

Local infrastructure destroyed when it was needed most.

When the towers go down, the mission cannot stop.

When the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted near Los Angeles, local cellular and fiber were destroyed or overwhelmed. Thousands of firefighters from across the U.S. and abroad converged on multi-agency base camps in rugged terrain, operating 24-hour shifts.

Bandwidth was scarce, demand was relentless.

They needed bandwidth for intel aircraft feeds, thermal imagery, and command traffic — and off-duty crews needed to reach family. Traditional infrastructure could not be rebuilt in time.

Off-the-shelf gear was not designed for this.

What was needed was not another internet circuit. It was a portable, ruggedized, multi-modal communications environment that could deploy in minutes, expand across base camps the size of several football fields, and survive smoke, heat, dust, and constant relocation as fire lines moved.

Damaged Infrastructure
High-Bandwidth Needs
Morale and Safety

CONTRIVIAN HORIZON KITS

The Solution

Rapid-deployment kits that replace the infrastructure.

Horizon kits as portable infrastructure.

Contrivian deployed Contrivian Horizon™ rapid deployment kits — ruggedized, battery-powered enclosures built for rapid field use. Each kit combined Starlink LEO connectivity, Contrivian Lighthouse™ path intelligence bonding multiple links, private LTE mini-towers on FirstNet and Verizon Frontline, and mesh Wi-Fi access points that auto-joined the camp network.

Active-active over satellite and cellular.

Contrivian Lighthouse™ continuously evaluates path performance and steers traffic across bonded paths in real time. Either link can carry the full load; together they deliver enough bandwidth for sustained transfers of weather data, thermal imagery, and live operational feeds.

Wi-Fi mesh that deploys itself.

Small ruggedized enclosures containing Peplink AP One Rugged access points and antennas auto-joined the existing Wi-Fi mesh on power-up. No site survey, no controller setup, no cabling — battery-powered go-boxes provided instant Wi-Fi to command trailers and responder areas.

Mini-towers for handsets.

With local cellular sites destroyed, compact LTE mini-towers tied into the Peplink and Starlink core. Towers broadcast on FirstNet and Verizon Frontline frequencies, allowing first responders to use their standard issued mobile devices as if a normal cellular network was present.

Connectivity in minutes, no infrastructure required.

Each kit stood up connectivity in minutes, with zero dependency on surviving cell sites or fiber. The integrated stack — Contrivian Horizon™, Contrivian Lighthouse™, Starlink, FirstNet, Verizon Frontline, mesh Wi-Fi — was tuned specifically for wildfire operations.

Contrivian Horizon Kits
Contrivian Lighthouse Gateway
Private LTE Mini-Towers
Peplink Technology

Solution Stack

CONNECTIVITY

The Outcome

Full connectivity restored across every base camp.

The deployment of Contrivian's connectivity solution during the Palisades and Eaton fires provided critical benefits that strengthened firefighting efforts:

Command-to-field communications restored.

Immediate restoration of command-to-field communications across multiple base camps.

High-bandwidth real-time data.

High-bandwidth delivery of real-time weather, thermal imaging, and mission data to command trailers.

Standard handsets kept working.

Existing first-responder handsets remained functional via private LTE — no device changes required.

Crews stayed connected to home.

Off-duty responders maintained contact with family, supporting morale and operational resilience

Enhanced Coordination & Communication
Resilient Communication Network
Improved Crew Safety
Operational Efficiency

Where Else This Fits

A repeatable pattern, not a one-off.

Wildfire base camps and incident command in remote terrain

Hurricane and flood response where cellular and fiber are lost

Multi-agency coordination centers needing private LTE coverage

COOP / continuity-of-operations sites during regional outages

Search and rescue operations in austere environments

Looking Ahead

What this deployment unlocks.

By pre-staging Contrivian Horizon™ kits with Starlink terminals and bonded cores, the next wildfire deployment is operational from the moment teams arrive on scene. The roadmap pushes live data not just to command trailers but directly to frontline crews — extending bonded, intelligent connectivity to every responder in the field.

INTELLIGENCE · EXPERIENCE · ACCOUNTABILITY · TRUST

When infrastructure fails, Contrivian is the infrastructure.

Emergency Response

Construction & Operations

Energy & Utilities

Government & Defense

Maritime & Offshore

Healthcare

Financial Services

Retail

Media & Broadcasting

Manufacturing

Supported Networks

Carrier-Neutral. Performance-Driven.

Last-mile Connectivity

Providing local and global connectivity in 160+ Countries around the world through a 600 carrier partner ecosystem.

Amazon Leo Authorized Reseller

Amazon’s LEO constellation for government and enterprise. Integrated access for state, federal, and critical infrastructure agencies.

Starlink Authorized Reseller

Thousands of LEO satellites delivering global coverage. Managed smarter with Contrivian’s intelligent bonding layer.

Future Constellations

Carrier-neutral architecture designed to integrate additional LEO constellations as they reach operational maturity.

Networks Built for What's Next

Ready to build a network that holds under pressure?

Contrivian engineers connectivity for organizations that operate where downtime carries real consequences — operational, financial, or human. Whether you're managing remote infrastructure, responding to emergencies, or running distributed operations, we'll help you build a network designed to hold.

A Contrivian Connectivity engineer will follow up within one business day

Speak with a Specialist

Our team is ready to assess your environment and design a connectivity solution built for your operations.

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The Contrivian Platform

Part of a Larger Architecture.

Contrivian delivers end-to-end technology solutions that provide transparency, efficiency, and control over how businesses connect and scale. We leverage a hybrid infrastructure, combining fiber, LTE/5G, broadband, and LEO satellites to deliver secure and scalable connectivity anywhere in the world.

Intelligent Path Selection

Real-time performance monitoring and dynamic routing across every connectivity modality.

Lifecycle Management

Centralized visibility for design, procurement, monitoring, and operational control.

Rapid Deployment

Field-ready connectivity systems for fixed sites, in-motion vehicles and vessels, and portable field deployment.

Multi-Constellation Connectivity

Multiple LEO constellations orchestrated into one intelligent satellite layer.