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