Lab 6- Fire Hazard Mapping Resource

  
  Creating a fire hazard map for the LA Station Fire area was a very tedious and difficult process. Reading and executing the Modeling the Wildland/Urban Interface exercise helped immensely in figuring out how to spatially analyze the DEM and land cover for the station fire. The most time consuming aspect of this lab was finding the proper information online. I used the USGS website, FRAP, LA County GIS data pool, and LA County Enterprise GIS to find all the information displayed on my LA Station Fire spatial analysis map.

     After gathering all the data, I opened the digital elevation model and the LA Station Fire perimeter in ArcMap. Fortunately, all the data had the correct coordinates and were spatially correct. Next I inserted the vegetation and land cover type data. There were many different types of vegetation and land cover type data available so I had to sort through many to find the one I liked best. The vegetation and land cover type data shown in my map was detailed in that it listed hardwoods, shrubs, agriculture, and other vegetation yet simple enough where the data list was not 100 items long. After inserting the vegetation list, I played around with the color models to create an easily observable map.

     My second map is a fuel ranking map. I found the fuel rank spatial information online at the FRAP website. Although I created a combined fuel/slope map that highlights areas in terms of hazard level, I decided to include the fuel map because it included more complex and detailed inputs. The fuel rank data uses inputs such as as fuel, slope, brush density (ladder), and tree density(crown cover) and then organizes that data to create different fire hazard levels. My last map is a combined fuel/slope map which identifies where fire hazard is least and where it is greatest. For this map, I had to rank different types of vegetation in order which I thought created the most fire hazard. For example, chaparral is higher ranked in terms of fire hazard than barren land. I had trouble combining the slope and fuel data because I forgot to make the slope into a percent. However after reviewing the fire lab exercise, I was finally able to get the results I wanted and placed the fuel/slope map next to the fuel rank map for comparison.

     Although I ran into a couple of challenged during the course of my lab work, reviewing the exercise helped me overcome the problems quickly. The biggest challenge of this lab was creating the fire hazard map from scratch. Although it was time consuming finding the best spatial information from many different websites, I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment after creating my map. This lab helped me reinforce many different skills and techniques I learned. Also this type of spatial analysis can be used for many other things besides fire such as floods, hurricanes, and others.