Station Fire Report

This image shows an animation of the Station Fire as it grew from the early hours of August 29, 2009 to the morning of September 2, 2009. The light gray lines represent roads and trails. The color of the burning area becomes wider to show the progression of time.



This image shows how the size of the Station Fire changed dramatically from August 29 to September 2, 2009.


This graph tracks how the acreage of the fire increased from August 29th to September 2nd.


The spread of the wildfire was intensified due to the extremely mountainous terrain. Almost every part of the affected area had a slope of over 80%, as shown by the following image.



The Station Fire was the largest fire ever recorded in the Angeles National Forest and the 10th largest fire recorded in California since 1933 (InciWeb 2009). started on August 26th, 2009 and burned more than 250 square miles in the San Gabriel Mountains, and was not fully contained until October 16th, 2009 (Inciweb 2009). Fire experts determined that the fire was most likely started by arson, and caused the deaths of two firefighters and the injury of 22 people (InciWeb 2009). Fire personnel were blamed for not controlling the fire more effectively when it was first lit (KPCC Wire Services 2010).

The three things needed for fire to burn are oxygen, fire, and fuel (SmokeyBear.com 2010). The Station Fire was fueled by fallen pine needles and branches and living pine trees of the Angeles National Forest (InciWeb 2009). Fuel is abundant in California due to the region's steep terrain and rainfall patterns: more rain falls in the spring and increases vegetation growth, but summer brings heat and dryness and much of the spring growth dies and becomes dry and very flammable (Wikipedia 2010). When no fire has burned out an area for many years, fuel builds up and makes it very easy for a fire to spread out of control even if winds are not strong (Wikipedia 2010).

Although it burned largely in the Angeles National Forest, where population density is low, the Station Fire still did a lot of damage to residential and commercial areas. By August 30th, it had already destroyed 18 homes, many deep in the forest, and posed a significant threat to 10,000 more homes, 500 business structures, and 2,000 other buildings (CBS News 2009). One such building threatened by the Station Fire was the Mount Wilson Observatory, where there are many telescopes and 22 communications towers (Lakdawalla 2009). Two firefighters were killed as they tried to escape the flames and their truck drove off a cliff (CBS News 2009). The fire grew dramatically quickly, especially to the north, and was not even encouraged by Santa Ana winds (CBS News 2009).

In addition to the injury, death, and destruction, the Station Fire had many other ill effects. It made air quality intolerable in the surrounding communities of La Cañada Flintridge, Altadena, La Crescenta, and Pasadena (Lakdawalla 2009). Mudslides can occur after fires wipe out the vegetation that normally keeps the soil in place. The rains that follow can loosen soil enough to create massive mudslides that can rip homes from their foundation, so residents of areas affected by the Station Fire worked hard to create barriers that would protect their homes from mudslides (Zavis 2009). The San Gabriel Mountains are particularly susceptible to mudslides because they are made up of brittle, crumbly rocks (Zavis 2009). A mudslide ended up destroying over 40 homes in La Canada Flintridge (KPCC Wire Services 2010).

Although fires like this one are very destructive, they play an important role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems. The number of wildfires in Southern California has increased due to human influence, but periodic natural burning has many benefits. Fire removes excessive plant growth and makes room for new plants to grow (Long 2009). Fires also release nutrients into the soil, encouraging the growth of new plants (Long 2009). Fire experts are working to rehabilitate the area burned by the Station Fire (InciWeb 2009).

References:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of document. Retrieved from http://Web address

CBS2 News. (30 August 2009). 2 Firefighters Killed As Station Fire Grows. Retrieved from http://cbs2.com/local/Fire.Watch.Angeles.2.1152524.html

InciWeb: the Incident Information System. (10 November 2009). Station Fire. Retrieved from http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1856/

Knoll, Corina & Zavis, Alexandra. (17 September 2009). After the Station fire, a new danger: mudslides. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/17/local/me-sandbags17

KPCC Wire Services. (6 February 2010). Evacuation orders lifted for mudslide residents as clean-up effort gets underway. Retrieved from http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/02/06/heavy-rains-trigger-mudslides-station-burn-areas/

Lakdawalla, Emily. (31 August 2009). Station Fire update: Mount Wilson Observatory still there, but still under threat. Retrieved from http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002074/

Long, Alan J. (2009). Benefits of Prescribed Burning. Retrieved from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr061

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (27 May 2010). 2009 California Wildfires. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires

DEMs in ArcGis

The area I selected is in the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California, near Highway 395. The boundaries of this map are 35.86 degrees north to 36.46 degrees north and 117.62 degrees west to 116.75 degrees west. Visible in this particular map are several mountain ranges spanning from north to south with valleys between them. The scale of this map is 1:399,008.

This map shows a shaded relief of the area.


This map shows the varying slopes of the area defined by different colors. Green signifies a flat slope, while dark red signifies the most extreme slope.


This map shows the aspect, which is the direction the land faces. Gray is flat, red is north, yellow is east, turquoise is south, and blue is west.


The following three maps show 3-dimensional views of the area from different angles.

Lab 5: Map Projections with ArcGis

Every map projection is going to distort the earth in some way or another, but knowing which one to use in different situations is important. To determine this, it is important to look at the distortion of the 30˚ x 30˚ graticule, the distortion of the land masses, and the changing distances. It might be interesting to note that the actual distance between Kabul and Washington, DC is 6,930 miles.

The sinusoidal projection looks somewhat spherical, so the observer might think of a globe when looking at it. It is equal area, so the sizes of land masses are not distorted much except at the poles. It appears to be most accurate near the equator, but distances are greatly stretched. The Mercator projection also seems to be most accurate at the equator, but instead of being squeezed at the poles like the sinusoidal projection, it is vertically stretched, so Antarctica looks larger than all the other land masses put together, and Greenland looks larger than South America. It is obvious that the most northern and most southern 30˚ x 30˚ squares are greatly distorted because they are so much longer than all the others.

The Gall stereographic projection appears to display the land masses without much distortion, but it is important to note that vertical distances are somewhat exaggerated. This can be determined by looking at the shape of the graticules. This projection also has more distortion, but this is not as pronounced as it is in the Mercator projection.

It is interesting to compare the differences between the two types of cylindrical projection. The equidistant cylindrical projection stretches the image of the earth vertically, and the equal area cylindrical projection stretches it horizontally. The equidistant cylindrical projection provides, by far, the closest estimate of the distance between Washington, DC and Kabul. It would be interesting to see if the distance from one city to another city directly to the south would be as accurate, since this projection seems to distort north-south coordinates a lot. The equal area cylindrical projection flattens the image of the earth at the poles.

The conic projection presents a completely different shape of map. It seems to be an accurate view of the earth from above, with distances between longitude lines zero at the poles and increasing towards the equator, but there is one problem: Antarctica appears to be about 50,000 miles long. This is because the distance between longitude lines doesn't decrease towards the south pole. If an accurate view of Antarctica was needed, this projection could view the earth from above the south pole instead of the north pole.