LA Station Fire of 2009

The assignment this week was based on the LA Station Fire of 2009. This was an extensive fire that sadly took the life of two firefighters. What I chose to focus on was the risk popular locations, retail centers, and recreational areas faced during this fire by looking at how closely the fire came to these areas. I also wanted to look at the damage of LA's county parks from this fire. In 2009, 336,020 acres of land burned in California and 160,577 of those burned acres were attributed to the Station Fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires).

The Station Fire began in the Angeles National Forrest in Los Angeles, California burning 85,000 acres overnight and threated the Angeles Crest Highway by Mt. Wilson on August 31, 2009(MolinaGenaroLATimes2009,August,31). Here is a map I created showing the slope of LA County area, highlighting the county parks in dark green and water bodies in blue. I overlaid the fire perimeters by day on the parks to show the progression of destruction the fire took to the park.

Hot humid weather contributed to the massive growth of this fire with temperatures in the triple digits. NBC reported on August 31, 2009 that 4 dozen structures were destroyed and thousands more were threatened. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that 89 residences were destroyed and 13 were damaged, 26 commercial buildings were destroyed with 22 commercial buildings damaged. Outbuildings that were destroyed totaled 94 structures and 22 were damaged. Here are two maps I created to show, first, the LA County area with retail centers, recreation areas, and popular places marked and the second map has the Station Fire by day overlaid on top of these popular places. With the massive damage this fire inflicted, these maps show how closely the fire came to causing even more damage. Winds were mild which was the number one factor in the Station Fire not reaching the suburban areas of LA.

 

 

 

 

Here is a third map of the same information but overlaid on the hillshade for a different view:

The estimated damage of this fire is estimated by the USDA of being $95,3000,000. In total the Station Fire burned approximately 161,000 acres. 154,000 acres of Forest Service System and 6,700 acres of private lands were burned by the fire (http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/angeles/home/?cid=stelprdb5318306).

 

The United States Government Accountability Office created an official report on the Station Fire in 2011. This report cited arson as the cause of this fire and flammable vegetation for exacerbating the spread of wildfire. It is so sad to hear of all the damage and destruction caused by arson. This was an unnecessary occurrence that had negative affects on wildlife, agriculture, structures and people's lives. It was a horrible and tragic fire in which firefighters risked their lives and some lost their lives. In the end they were able to stop the fire and contain it 100%. 

I really enjoyed learning about this fire and mapping different aspects of it. I am getting better and better at adding new layers and downloading new information to add to ArcGIS. I really like to manipulate the data so it emphasizes exactly what I want to show.

Works Cited:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/angeles/home/?cid=stelprdb5318306

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32615136/ns/us_news-life/#.Uw9rvd_TnZ4

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-county-fire-doubles-in-size-more-homes-list-mt-wilson-threatened.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires

http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/587075.pdf 

 

Mount Spokane Maps

This weeks assignment was to find an area we found interesting from the USGS website and use that map image to manipulate different views. I chose Mount Spokane!

Here is a map of what the first image looked like:

Next I took this image and looked at the hillshade of the same area:

Here is a map of the slope of the mountain:



 



A map of the aspect of Mount Spokane:

 

 

 

This was so cool! We got to make a 3D image of our map!!!

 

 





How cool is that?! I had a lot of fun moving the mountain around so that I could see the land changes easily. I really like how the color scale shows emphasizes the image and how the white looks like it represents snow up on the mountain! I was up snowshoeing on Mount Spokane last  weekend and doing this assignment makes me want to go again! It is really neat to see how manipulating maps emphasizes what information you want to portray. From one image I was able to change the way the map looked drastically just by viewing it in different aspects. Creating the 3D image was my favorite part!

Extent information:

Top 39.8291666661

Left -105.78888888889

Right -10.969444445

Bottom 39.38388888883

 

 

 

Spatial Reference GCS_North_American_1983

Angular Unit Degree (0.0174532925199433)

 

 

Washington DC to Kabul

This week's assignment was to look at how a maps distortion can affect the data we receive from maps. Pictured above was the starting map with Washington DC and Kabul. The distance on this map between Washington DC and Kabul was 6,934.478105 miles. Once the map projection changed so did the distance between the cities.

Here is a map using the Mercator projection. Washington DC and Kabul are still marked on this map but when measured the distance is different from the original map. The distance using the Mercator projection was 10,122.118968 miles.

The map here is using the Cylindrical Equal Area projection. Again using Washington DC and Kabul as two distances marked on the map the distance changes. The distance for the Cylindrical Equal Area projection is 10,108.051114 miles.

This last map projection is using the Equidistant Conic projection. Although this map looks the most unique of the maps used, to me it looks most like a globe. The distance between Washington DC and Kabul using the Equidistant and Conic projection was 6,957.649334 miles.

This activity was very interesting to me. I really enjoyed seeing how different projections can affect the final distance measured between two distances. This is something I think many people may not be aware of yet it can have a significant affect on them. This was a really fun assignment to complete!

Census Map

My two Census Maps

These are the two census maps that I was able to complete. I ran into some issues trying to create my own maps using census data. The first issue I ran into was saving my data from the previous week incorrectly and having to start the tutorial over again. After I had started over and was almost done with the tutorial I ran into issues joining. Dr. Dvorak attempted to help me join new data or even to join some of the data from the week 6 tutorial and was unable to. She told me to post the maps I was able to complete and write about the difficulties to complete the join.
It seems that the program was being very finicky when attempting to join data. Every time the join was attempted it failed. We were unsure why this was occurring. There was also difficulty when substituting values and having them default to values that I did not want to use.
All in all I found working with the census data very difficult and frustrating. I can appreciate the use of the maps when they are completed successfully and think they are very useful. I really like how data can be highlighted in different colors to have an easy visual of data. I think GIS is really beneficial to better understand the world around us. This exercise in GIS was really neat to see how data can be manipulated to highlight different races, years or numbers of people using census data. I wish the program would have been a little easier to work with so I could have joined data. I really appreciated Dr. Dvorak taking so much time to help me try to join tables and data and found it unfortunate we were able to successfully join the tables.

ArcMap

This was my first experience using ArcMap and due to my inexperience in this program I found this assignment very challenging. There were lots of little steps that added up to a lot of time put into making these maps. I feel that I learned a lot using this program and find it a very useful tool in making maps. It is amazing to me that this type of technology is available and is now being widely used.

ArchMap has the ability to display many different attributes on a map making it easy to create a map that highlights the information you want to display. I really enjoyed how personalized you can make maps by adding different color gradients or background colors to the map and legend. Being able to make corresponding graphs enhances the information you wish to present. The ability to remove or add items such as schools, roads or highways can make the map easier to read and interpret for the reader.

I feel like I had a really hard time following all the instructions quickly and spent about 9 hours on this assignment. This is partially my fault for not saving information correctly as well as being new to this program and becoming oriented with the way it functions. I think populations that are not fluent with computers would find this program extremely challenging. To use this program well one must be fluent with computers in general and be familiar with the way ArcMap is used.

Overall I think this is a great program and a great tool for making readable maps as long as you have computer fluency and program fluency. I look forward to becoming more familiar with this program so that it becomes less challenging for me to use and I am able to make the types of maps I desire to outline the information I wish to present.

Google Map Assignment

A trip to Joseph, OR

My Trip

I really enjoyed using Google Maps to create a day trip through Joseph, OR. It was very helpful to create a map based on my interests and highlight stops on my trip. Being able to add pictures of the stores I wanted to stop at was fun and would be helpful on a trip. I really liked how easy it was to find appropriate icons and add markers along the route.
I think that neogeography is really fun and useful but may be difficult for some populations to use. It is highly computer based and takes some basic online knowledge. Another difficulty I noticed is that when I was attempting to highlight stops on my route not all shops/stores were visible on the map so some people may have a difficult time creating an accurate route if they cannot find their stops on the map.
I was unaware of this tool Google Maps provided but I will now use it for future reference when planning my next trip.

3 Interesting Maps

This is a map outlining poverty in the Inland Northwest. This is from an article released from the New York Times with the information coming from the Census Bureau. I find this interesting because it is a good way of visually seeing "hot spots" for poverty in our area. Using this type of map can help to address what areas are in need of more services to help those in need.

This map was published by the Spokesman Review and was created by the Census Bureau. This map outlines population differences throughout WA state and how different counties have grown in ethnicity. It is interesting to see migration patterns of different ethnicities and how they help diversify WA state.

 The last map I found was released by the Uniform Crime Report and outlines the larceny rates for the US. I find this very interesting because WA state, specifically Spokane, has higher larceny rates than much of the country. Spokane is one of the highest cities in the country for car theft.