Final Lab Project - Fire Mapping
California defiantly has its far share of forest fires due to the incredibly dry climate that the state maintains. However in recent years one fire stands out specially, that is the Station Fire of 2009. CNN reported "Bone-dry conditions in an area that has not seen a major fire in more than 60 years pushed a Southern California wildfire from 45,000 acres to more than 100,000 acres in a matter of hours Monday." This unbelievable pace of spread is illustrated in first map above.The fire officially started at on August 29th, 2009 just after noon. The cause of the fire was later discovered to be arson, an investigation continued into who was actually responsible for the fire, however an official suspect list was never made public.
The fire lasted a total of 18 days and 5 hours ending on October 16th, 2009 7pm. Even after the fire was officially deemed to be over many areas which had been hotspots for the fires, remained a threat. There were many reasons that the Station Fire was one of the most difficult fire to deal with successfully. Firstly most of the fire was on unworkable terrain such as steep hillsides sides. Secondly as this fire was a forest fire, there were huge trees falling after their extensive roots systems (which normally keep them standing) had been burned. This meant that firefighters had to avoid falling trees, while combating the fire.
The Station fire has been recorded as the largest fire in LA County history, as well as the 10th largest fire in California since 1933. It is reported that a total of 12,000 buildings were threatened during the fire, most of these being homes, as well as 160,000 acres of National Forests within the San Gabriel Mountains. In total 18 homes were destroyed and 2 people were killed, these were unfortunately firefighters. Many firefighters were admitted to hospital with injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to external injuries.
One of the most memorable features of this fire was the speed that it spread, this is illustrated in both maps above. As the colours change from dark red to yellow, this illustrates more time passing with dark red being the epicenter. The second map I have shows the location of the larger rivers within LA County. I created this thematic map to examine a correlation between the spread of fire in relation to the rivers, as I would expect that the fire would not be able to spread well in dense river areas. It can be seen that the there are multiple rivers to the south of the epicenter of fire, and the fire did not spread south at all. On the northern boundary of the largest perimeter of the fire (9/02 at 7:02), there are once again multiple rivers. This could prove the theory that the fire does not spread in areas were rivers are prevalent However the fact in the middle of the largest perimeter of the fire there are multiple rivers may disprove this theory.
The use and importance of GIS is quite clear for a situation like this one. Detailed maps can be easily created showing different types of information, from postal zones to roads to hospitals. These maps can be extremely useful in examining relationships between different features. Taking the Station Fire, my river map is an example of a theory of fire prevention. However I could have created a map illustrating which postal areas were affected the worst. I could also have created a map showing important historical sites and which, if any, were affected by the fire. All of these maps graphically illustrated data in a way that is much easier to understand then if illustrated simply on an attribute table.
The fire lasted a total of 18 days and 5 hours ending on October 16th, 2009 7pm. Even after the fire was officially deemed to be over many areas which had been hotspots for the fires, remained a threat. There were many reasons that the Station Fire was one of the most difficult fire to deal with successfully. Firstly most of the fire was on unworkable terrain such as steep hillsides sides. Secondly as this fire was a forest fire, there were huge trees falling after their extensive roots systems (which normally keep them standing) had been burned. This meant that firefighters had to avoid falling trees, while combating the fire.
The Station fire has been recorded as the largest fire in LA County history, as well as the 10th largest fire in California since 1933. It is reported that a total of 12,000 buildings were threatened during the fire, most of these being homes, as well as 160,000 acres of National Forests within the San Gabriel Mountains. In total 18 homes were destroyed and 2 people were killed, these were unfortunately firefighters. Many firefighters were admitted to hospital with injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to external injuries.
One of the most memorable features of this fire was the speed that it spread, this is illustrated in both maps above. As the colours change from dark red to yellow, this illustrates more time passing with dark red being the epicenter. The second map I have shows the location of the larger rivers within LA County. I created this thematic map to examine a correlation between the spread of fire in relation to the rivers, as I would expect that the fire would not be able to spread well in dense river areas. It can be seen that the there are multiple rivers to the south of the epicenter of fire, and the fire did not spread south at all. On the northern boundary of the largest perimeter of the fire (9/02 at 7:02), there are once again multiple rivers. This could prove the theory that the fire does not spread in areas were rivers are prevalent However the fact in the middle of the largest perimeter of the fire there are multiple rivers may disprove this theory.
The use and importance of GIS is quite clear for a situation like this one. Detailed maps can be easily created showing different types of information, from postal zones to roads to hospitals. These maps can be extremely useful in examining relationships between different features. Taking the Station Fire, my river map is an example of a theory of fire prevention. However I could have created a map illustrating which postal areas were affected the worst. I could also have created a map showing important historical sites and which, if any, were affected by the fire. All of these maps graphically illustrated data in a way that is much easier to understand then if illustrated simply on an attribute table.
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