Lab 8: Mapping the Station Fire in ArcGIS

Introduction

The 2009 station fire that occurred in Los Angeles from the 29^th August till the 2^nd of September was one of the largest and deadliest fires to occur in California for many years. The Los Times reported that 'The fire churned through more than 42,500 acres of forest, from the edge of metropolitan Los Angeles up to pine-clad ridges and down toward the Mojave desert.' and that More than '12,500 homes were threatened' (Los Angeles Times, 2009). The fire itself was difficult to contain according to the United States Department of Agriculture (2009), due to the rugged terrain and accessibility. On this basis, I decided to create a map that provided a management strategy for containing the fire through the use of road and airports, and prioritising certain areas based on the population density.

Thematic Map 1

Thematic Map 2

Thematic Map 3

Thematic map uses

As aforementioned, the objective of my map was to develop a management strategy for containing the fire. Upon researching the fire control units available to the Los Angeles Fire Department, I noticed that they use helicopters for both mapping the fire and fire containment through dumping water (Inciweb, 2009). I plotted LA air fields and large bodies of water to identify which airport was the best to launch a fire containment strategy. The helicopters available to the LAFD have a range of over 400 Miles (LAFD, 2012) which I factored in when choosing the airport. From the map its clear that the airport (highlighted by the purple ring) in Thematic map 3 is the best for launching the helicopters due to the location to the station fire/s, as well as the nearby body of water. 

Secondly, I plotted major highways and hospitals, again helping decide which roads to take when on the ground to the nearest health point. Lastly, I added population density, indicated by the small grey dots. Its clear that on the south side of the fire, there is dense population so preventing it from developing towards the south was essential.

The Pros and Cons of the thematic map

The map offers a huge amount of visual analysis, finding the best airport to use in terms of its location to the station fire and to a body of water is easy to see. Furthermore, you can see the road network, which is layered on top of the station fire allowing for the shortest route to be viewed. Finally, you can identify the hospitals easily – the red spots. If I were to complete the Lab again, I would like to add buffer zones to each airport as well as live traffic information to the road network. Finally, I would like to make the map interactive, allowing for labels to be added such as what the airports name is, how large the body of water is, and the information to appear on the fire points.

Conclusion

The station fire eventually went out on 2nd September 2009. It engulfed 160,577 acres of land but was 100% contained (CA.gov, 2012) thanks to the efforts of both ground and air fire control units.  These fires happen every year in California due to its climate being very dry - particularly in the summer and mapping in this way will help plan, manage and prevent fires in the future.

Reference:

CA.gov. "Station Fire General Information." N.p., 2010. Web. 13 Dec 2012. [http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=377].

Inciweb. "InciWeb the Incident Information System: Station Fire." N.p., 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012. [http://inciweb.org/incident/1856/].

LAFD. "Los Angeles County Fire Department." N.p., 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012. [http://www.fire.lacounty.gov/airwildland/AirWildlandAirOps.asp].

Los Angeles Times. "Station fire claims 18 homes and two firefighters." N.p., 2009. Web. 11 Dec 2012. [http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/31/local/me-fire31].

United States Department of Agriculture. "Station Fire Initial Attack Review." N.p., 2012. Web. 14 Dec 2012. [http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/station_fire_report.pdf].