GEOGRAPHY 7 LAB 7

Fire is a naturally occurring phenomenon which humans have learned to deal with throughout history. When fire burns uncontrollably, it became a source for disaster to all environmental areas. The Los Angeles Station Fire august/September 2009 is an example of such tragedy. According to statistics, the first "big one" happened in December of 1927 and since then more than 20 catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles County have happened. This was the lesson for local government to begin organized fire protection.

The wildfire, called the Station Fire was considered as a tragedy in Los Angeles County. During about 50 days it devastate 160,577 acres of land, destroyed 89 homes and 209 structures, scrub oak and mature trees and destroying three dozen cabins inside the Angeles National Forest, 1. The reason for this fire are different including local natural sources and hypothesis about terrorists action. As mentioned by US Forest Service intense heat caused the soil to 'seal' itself , drys and becam easily fire able. The final cost was estimated $93 million only for environment ,plus much more for home owner it this areas.

Basic Information.

Incident Type- Wildfire
Cause - Arson
Date of Origin Wednesday August 26th, 2009 approx. 03:30 PM
Location Los Angeles River Ranger District / Angeles National Forest
Incident Commander K. Giao
Current Situation
Total Personnel 34
Size 160,577 acres
Percent Contained 100%


GIS provides the Geographic advantage to study the Station Fare on LA from August/September. Geographic information system(GIS) technology provides tools and data to depict and analyze the disaster. The data required are Elevation, Water sources, Weather conditions, locations of natural resources, and Fire station locations and infrastructure and population.
In this laboratory projected shapefiles were downloaded from LA county enterprise GIS website and software ArcGIS was used.

The weather conditions on August/September 2009 worried all of us in the state of California. The temperature in Southern California was abnormally hot with very little humidity present in the atmosphere and the hot local winds were very intense. The map I decided to create is about the Station Fire in the LA nation park and recreational areas. It can be seen the area of the fire and compare it to the total artea of the county. Using several layers one can get better sense of the fire scale.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Los Angeles County. "GIS Data.. at http://gis.lacounty.gov/eGIS/?page_id=117.
U.S. Forest Service. http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/9512/ .

2. The Massive Californian Wildfires Encircling Los Angeles , at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210417/.


3. Council for Geoscience. "Landslides and Slope Instability." Council for Geoscience. 14 March 2009. The Collective Advisory (TCA). 22 November 2009. .

4. USGS. "Emergency Assessment of Postfire Debris-Flow Hazards for the 2009 Station Fire, .

5. USGS. "2009 Station Fire, Dunsmore Canyon, Glendale California." USGS - Science for changing the world. 13 October 2009. U.S. Department of the Interior. 11 November 2009. .