Station Fire

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The Los Angeles Station Fire, which began on August 26, 2009 and lasted until October 16, 2009 burned approximately 160,577 acres in the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. This fire is the worst wildfire in the history of Los Angeles County and was labeled as an arson fire. The Station fire burned for over a month and caused many evacuations as well as threatened many buildings and structures in the surrounding communities and National Forest. This brief report summarizes the proximity of the Station fire from August 29, 2009 to September 2, 2009 to: populated areas, such as suburbs and cities, Los Angeles landmarks, such as the Hollywood sign, and parks located in Los Angeles County. These maps are provided to aid in the visualization of how the fire spread during those five days and in which direction they seemed to affect as well as areas that many people tend to visit or live.

Being a native to San Diego County, I have seen my fair share of terrible fires. In 2003, San Diego County was ravaged by the Cedar fire which was labeled California’s worst fire in history. This fire not only wrecked homes, it managed to kill 15 people and jump large freeways, such as the I-5. What made the Cedar fire so severe to people was the proximity it had to populated areas. In 2003 I was made to evacuate my home. It burned down toughly 2,200 homes and caused schools to shut down for a week. The Station fire on the other hand was widely out of most densely populated areas. As you can see , the Station fire resided mostly in the Angeles National Forest. The buildings most affected there were park buildings, and a handful of outlying homes.

Next you will notice that the areas designated landmarks were mainly out of harm’s way because of their correlation to populated areas. Many iconic areas in Los Angeles that were man built were able to avoid direct fire contact because the vicinity in which the fire took place was a National Forest. However, when it comes to parks in Los Angeles County you will notice that they were directly impacted, mainly the national forest in which the fire took place because so many acres were burned. When the Cedar fire burned, it went straight through inland San Diego County which is a very densely packed and highly populated area.

What this tends to mean for people is a loss of property due to any fire damage done to their homes or physical being. However, the forest itself will now have to undergo succession in order to claim back the flora burned. Tom Gillespie, Professor of Geography here at UCLA has discussed over and over again the perils that come with preventing natural fire from occurring in human populated areas. Gillespie has said that the reason California has such intense fires is due to our prevention of natural fires which cause fuel to build up on the ground in forested areas. According to Gillespie, once the fuel which is composed of leaves and detritus materials has accumulated year after year, it allows for any small flame to go from what naturally would be a ground fire to a very difficult to manage crown fire.

The Station Fire initial area of containment was a lot smaller than the September dates on the map. Over the course of only five days (remember the fire lasted over a month) the fire managed to spread northward, luckily away from mostly populated areas. However, on August 31 you will notice a shift in the fire which caused it to make a slight shift westward. As you look at the fire perimeter in relation to populated areas, think about what the fire’s long lasting effects have been such as air and water quality, as well as vegetation succession in the Angeles National Forest.

References:
"Quick Facts," U.S. Census Bureau, May 24, 2010.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html

GIS Data, Los Angeles County GIS, May 18, 2010.
http://gis.lacounty.gov
(site went down and I could not acquire the full URL)

Incident Information, California Webpage, May 24, 2010.
http://www.fire.ca.gov/cdf/incidents/Cedar%20Fire_120/incident_info.html

"Cedar Fire and Memorial," Lakeside Historical Society, May 24, 2010.
http://www.lakesidehistory.org/CedarFire/cedar_fire_memorial.htm

Los Angeles Times Blog, Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2010.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-county-fire-doubles-in-size-more-homes-list-mt-wilson-threatened.html

Lecture 14, May 12, 2010., Geography 111: Forest Ecosystems, Professor Tom Gillespie.

DEM

The lab this week had us creating our own digital elevation models based on a location in the United States. At first I was going to pick a place that had an extremely high elevation, probably somewhere in the Sierra Nevada Mountains since they reside in my home state of California. However I decided to pick a canyon, specifically the Grand Canyon in respect to the childhood experiences I have had there and throughout the southwest. The datum used for these models is the North American Geographic Coordinate System of 1983. The Grand Canyon is located in the north west corner of Arizona, (36°6′0″ N, 112°6′0″ W) and is a massive rift in the Colorado Plateau (NPS, 2007). The lab this week was extremely fun and interesting, especially in regard to the 3D model. Creating each model was simple and enjoyable, unlike some past lab experiences.

Map Projections

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The lab this week based on Geospatial Data Management has been by far, the most enjoyable lab this quarter. While at the beginning the lab was a little bit confusing, one I had the first map finished the next five were very manageable and quite fun. One of the highlights in my opinion in this lab was the ability I had to creatively arrange and organize my map presentation. While the creative side of me was very happy with this lab, it also was extremely informative. When compared to last week’s lab, which was not only extremely stressful but so dense that I barely recall anything, and would in fact have to resort back to the tutorial, this lab allowed me to take away the knowledge and tools needed to create these map projections.

The map projections that were created this week served as a very large eye opener to me. I suppose I have never really given any thought to how inaccurate map projections can be. From the lectures that discussed preservation of one thing over many things, I am visually able to understand what Sheng meant. The first set of projections, which are the conformal map projections, allow for the reader to see that while distance may not be preserved, the angles of the grid are all right angles. From my own personal experience, I feel as if the most common map projections I have seen throughout school are conformal, with a key element being that Antarctica is blown severely out of proportion.

The second set of projections I created were the equal area projections. Consisting of the Mollweide and Bonne projections, these maps give way to an awkward shape of the earth, but in means of keeping the area of places preserved. These two projections are ones that I haven’t seen before, and I only found out about via this lab. The third set of projections used were the Sinusoidal and Plate Carree models, which preserve the distance from one place to another.

In this week’s lab we had to locate Washington D.C. and Kabul, and using different map projections find the distance between the two cities. Things of this nature to not come easily to me to visualize, so when Professor Sheng discussed this in lecture the concept was very hard for me to grasp. However, this lab was excellent in demonstrating to me how different methods of preserving key elements of a map can severely change the distance measured from one point to the next. For this exercise, each type of projection had two models. In two of the projection groups, conformal and equal distance I had large discrepancies in distance between point A (Washington) and point B (Kabul). The first set of models, Mercator and Gall Stereographic gave me distances of roughly 10,000 miles and 7,000 miles. The second set of models, Sinusoidal and Plate Carree had distances of roughly 10,000 miles and 8,000 miles (for exact distance see maps). A few thousand miles, in my opinion is a wide margin of discrepancy for maps preserving the same element. The last two models, Mollweide and Bonne came in with the closest distances at roughly 7,900 miles to 6,700 miles. While this projection still has a 1,000 mile discrepancy, it was the closest of the three projections. I will add that I do not know if these large margins of distance between similar models is normal or error.

Proposed Airport Expansion

This week’s lab was, in my opinion, ridiculous. I understand that this class is an introductory course into GIS, but the frustration, stress and overall feeling that I took away from this lab was over all very negative. I understand that learning programs such as ArcGIS take time and literally just practice and repetition, but when the learning is condensed into short intervals and the software is located at a specific location, such as the computer labs, it creates enormous stress. However, overall the lab was an excellent learning experience. The first thing that I found positive when dealing with the lab was that all fifty eight pages of the PDF were very concise and simple instructions to follow. Not only was the tutorial very nurturing, it had ample pictures to make sure you were absolutely doing everything correct. I know some might scorn that as “babying,” my style of learning really needs clarification on things of this nature.

Now I know I said that the lab over all was a great learning experience, but the individual processes to finishing it were sheer hell. On the day of lab section and after getting through the first 5 pages of the PDF, it was pretty simple albeit extremely time consuming. Seeing as how I only had around two hours I was unable to finish. The next time I tackled it was on the weekend, with no TA and no fellow students in the lab. An hour into further working on it I ran into a snag. An error of my data’s source literally brought my lab to a halt. Unable to troubleshoot with anyone, I had to save my work and wait to discuss it with a TA. I even googled the error to see what fellow Arc users had to say, but was unable to fix it.

When it comes to ArcGIS, the advantages are clear. This program and skill is extremely valuable. In a competitive market, having a skill such as this is very important. However, for someone who does not have the luxury of taking an introductory GIS course, the software can be extremely overwhelming, but not impossible. ArcGIS is simply something that one has to take time to get accustomed with and learn the ins and the outs of it. I feel that if I had to deal with this software every day, then in a month or so I would be proficient to an extent.

In terms of this lab specifically, it seems that it was more hassle and stress for everyone than anything else. Having spent time in the computer labs both during lab time and just during random hours of the day, as well as having met with my TA and been in the lab when Erin was there helping, it seemed very crazy. I know that I was not the only one to have immense difficulties with everything, and from what I observed, Erin was having a rough time running from hand to hand trying to help people usually with similar issues.