The Station Fire
In this project, we made maps in order to investigate the Station Fire in LA County during August and September 2009. It was the largest wildfires that threatened many people's home and burnt a large area, 160,577 acres. It was only the tenth largest fire in the States. Two firefighters' lives were taken away by the fire while they were battling the blaze. Many people were affected or evacuated due to the fire, 209 building were destroyed including 89 homes, the fire started in the Angeles National Forest near the U.S Forest Service Ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway which was believed that it was an arson case. And the authorities have launched a homicide investigation.
The Station fire has burned about 144,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, it has largely affected the ecology, burning down the home of the animals, and destroyed those hiking areas that many people love in Los Angeles. The blaze nearly burnt the building and areas in the cities nearby, like La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Littlerock and Altadena, as well as theSunland and Tujunga, which are all the near the city of Los Angeles. It burned on the slopes of Mount Wilson and threatened many TV, radio or cell phone antenna on the mountain' s summit, and mostly important, it almost burned the Mount Wilson Observatory, which has many significant telescopes and expensive astronomical facilities. Some of the Los Angeles Crest Highway was closed because of the guardrail and sign damage.
This is the reference map that shows the temporal expansion of the Station Fire perimeter and the major freeway network in Los Angeles. We can see how far did the fire spread within those few days, and we can see the exact number of the amount of acres burned in different timing from the attribute table which is one of the good use of ArcGIS.
Image from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/data/fire_data/fuels/fuelsfr.html) that shows different kinds of surface fuel. This figure is useful for looking at the near map that I created, it shows the some of the level of fuel load of different vegetation. For example, the level of fuel load of the hardwood forest littler is low.
From this map, we can tell the distribution of different vegetation around the Los Angeles Area, and then we can find out what type of vegetation did the fire burned and could that help making the fire worse. Different kinds of vegetation are represented by different colors. The materials that being burnt in the fire are mostly Tall Chaparral, which is purple in color in the map. It is a highly flammable vegetation, and is known as fire follower, which grow as woody shrubs with hard and small leaves; are non-leaf dropping, and are drought tolerant. At first, the fire wasn't that bad since on august 29th , it was just burning some light fuel sources, mostly grasses and brush if we looked clearer. Those vegetation helped feed the fire and it started going to the steeper slope where the higher burning fuel plants are, such as the tall chaparral and mixed conifer forest. The vegetation gave the large amount of fuel to the fire to continue to burn. Many people was complaining that why there was no one to stop the fire within 48 hours which is still manageable, they thought the U.S Forest Service could have done something to stop this disaster.
The second map shows the fire zones, the hospitals and the freeway distribution in Los Angeles in order to find which one is the most dangerous and mostly affected one back at that time. So, from looking at the attribute table, the nearest hospitals are Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, and San Gabriel Valley Medical Center. They are all located in the edges of the fire zones or right next to it.
This map shows the elevation, the area of parks and station fire zones. The south facing slope helped the fire to move to an area with rugged and steep terrain and stronger fuel sources as the map above shows. And luckily, the fire didn't really burn into the urban areas, which would obviously led to a large amount of people getting injured or even died. The fire basically located in the National Forest which has many vegetation to help the fire grow as the same time, unfortunately. Destruction of the natural landscape and deforestation could led to other different problems later.
Bibliography :
"Anger Fire Roars Across 100,000 California Acres". CNN. http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-31/us/california.wildfires_1_mike-dietrich-firefighters-safety-incident-commander?_s=PM:US
Bloometkatz, Ari. "Fans Can't Wait to Hit Reopened Road". Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/05/local/la-me-0605-angeles-crest-20110605
Bloomekatz, Ari. "Station Fire Was Arson, Officials Say". Los Angeles Time, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-was-arson-homicide-investigation-begins.html
California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection. http://www.fire.ca.gov/index.php
Emma Gallegos,Station Fire provides opportunity to understand the science of mudslides, http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_14952909, Accessed on May 25, 2010
Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal. http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/?tag=lar-iac
UCLA GIS Data Archive. http://gis.ats.ucla.edu/
