Lab 8

Mapping the Station Fire in ArcGIS

The Station Fire happened on August 26th, 2009 was a huge disaster to Los Angeles county and it was not fully controlled until October 16th . This wildfire started in the Angeles National Forest near the U.S. Forest Service ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway ("New fire breaks out near Angeles Crest Highway; forces road closure"). The blaze threatened 12,000 structures in the National Forest and the nearby communities of La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Littlerock and Altadena, as well as the Sunland and Tujunga neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles ( "Station Fire Evening Update Aug. 31, 2009").

 In Southern California, the normal wildfire season begins in October with the arrival of the infamous Santa Ana winds, and it is unusual to see fires spread so rapidly at other times of year. However, temperatures throughout the southern part of the state exceeded 100 °F (38 °C) for much of late August. The combination of high temperatures, low humidity and a large quantity of tinder-dry fuel, some of which had not burnt for decades, allowed some of the normal fires to quickly explode out of control despite the lack of winds to spread the flames. These conditions, along with extreme terrain in many undeveloped areas that slowed access to burn areas, made firefighting difficult ("2009 California wildfires"). What was worse, two firefighters were killed on August 30 while attempting to escape the flames when their fire truck plunged off a cliff ("Firefighters Killed in 'Station Fire' Remembered").

The first map I made suggested the gradual expansion of the fire and its relative location in LA county. According to this map, we can see that the expansion speed of Station Fire was really fast in the first three days. The size of burning area almost doubled on August 29th and 30th. The map also showed the main highways of LA county. It showed that most part of highway was not affected, except  Angeles Crest Highway.

The second map I made suggested how Station Fire threat the citizens of LA county.  It was lucky that most populated area was not harmed by the fire because the fire was most active in the forest area. Besides, we can see from this map that populated area was not affected by fire until September, because of the expansion of fire and the difficulty to control it. Although the damage to populated area seemed small, there were still 209 structures destroyed in this disaster, including 89 homes ("Station Fire Update Sept. 27, 2009").

In conclusion, the Station Fire can be understood better with the help of GIS. Moreover, GIS can be helpful to fight wildfires. Firefighters can use GIS to observe the development of fire so that they can guess which direction the fire will spread next. Besides, many other factors and data can be joined into the fire map by using GIS. Obviously, wildfires can be controlled much easier by considering the temperature, moisture and wind direction as well. I believe if GIS can be used appropriately, the damage to populated area that wildfires caused will be smaller next time.

Reference

"New fire breaks out near Angeles Crest Highway; forces road closure" (2009). Pasadena 
            Star-News. Retrieved from http://www.pasadenastarnews.com

"Station Fire Evening Update Aug. 31, 2009" (2009). InciWeb. Retrieved from http://inciweb.org
            /incident/article/9360/

"2009 California Wildfires." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires

"Firefighters Killed in 'Station Fire' Remembered" (2009). KTLA-TV. Retrieved from 

            http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-firefighters-bio,0,7708207.story

"Station Fire Update Sept. 27, 2009" (2009). InciWeb. Retrieved from http://inciweb.org/incident
            /article/9640/