The Station Fire of Los Angeles is the "largest" fire to have ever been recorded in Los Angeles (Nester 2009). In addition to taking human lives, destroying homes, burning trees and killing flora and fauna, the impacts of the fire still persist today. The cause of the fire was believed to be caused by an "arson" (Nester 2009). Although there continues to be severe damage, there are now investigations being made to see if there is any improvements that can be made to prevent future fire emergencies and tragedies from progressing as far as this fire did. For example, according to the Huffington Post, the Forest Service has been asked to reexamine their "foggy policies that could cause confusion" to the firefighters and also to "clarify ambiguous operational processes" by the U.S. Government in order to make sure that fires are handled even better in the future (Blood 2011).
Above is a map of the Station Fire of Los Angeles, which occurred in 2009 that I made during lab using ArcGIS. Shades of purple indicate the location and extent of the fire in Los Angeles. I also added information on the locations of National Parks and the location of major and minor highways to show how the fire impacted the Los Angeles Area. As you can see by the map, both highways, major and minor, as well as the National Park in L.A. were severely impacted by the Station Fire. This map also highlights the usefulness of GIS for natural disaster planning, as a map like this, as well as other GIS maps can be used for planning effective responses to fires or other disasters. For example, GIS can be used to help determine which would be the best and fastest way to get fire trucks to the fire or how to get particular residents or occupants safely out of areas of danger. For this map, I wanted to illustrate how visitors of the park, residents nearby and drivers on the road near the fire zones were impacted by the Station Fire of 2009.
As you can see from the map above, the fire occupied a large portion of the National park areas. This fire occupied and burned more than "42,500 acres"and it's impacts are still being observed today (Garrison 2009). The fire devastatingly burnt trees, homes and killed many people and today the actual national forest is finding it hard to rebound from the damage. According to an article in the L.A. Times, reforestation efforts in the area burnt heavily by the fire have failed. In April of this year, "a million pine and fir trees" were reintroduced into the area of the National park where the fire had burned (Sahagun 2012). Despite this large volume of tree seedlings, most of the trees perished. Perhaps this was related to the intensity of the fire and the fact that the fire lasted for a few weeks. Below is a thematic map by Irene Nester showing the fire burn severity of the station fire (Nester 2009). According to Sahagun, there will probably be efforts in the future to reforest this same area, but as of now the area is still suffering as a result of the station fire.
Referring back to my first map, major and minor highways were also heavily impacted by the station fire. Many highways and roads were subject to closure as a result of the flames. According to Modern Hiker, the closures of the CA-39 and CA-2 were among some of the biggest closures to occur (Schreiner n.d.). This impacted transportation through the national park areas as well as network flows throughout this region of Los Angeles. In addition, Modern Hiker says that even today, many places in the park are closed off to visitors and hikers. As you can see, the impact the Station Fire of 2009 has left lasting and very widespread impacts as related to transportation and accessibility of the area.
As these maps illustrate, the Station Fire of Los Angeles was extremely destructive. To help during emergencies, to plan for these types of emergencies and to assess the damage, GIS is an extremely useful and essential tool to understand areas of disasters. These maps can give us information about how to navigate around these areas, how to get certain things to these areas (like firemen) and also help us understand how to recover from fires and other environmental damages. Despite the destruction, using GIS and spatial analysis can aid us during the disaster and help us understand what happened.
References
Blood, M. (2011). 2009 Los Angeles Station Fire Report Reveals Foggy Policies In the Forest Service. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/2009-los-angeles-wildfire-_n_1153695.html
Garrison, J. (Aug. 21, 2009). Station Fire Claims 18 Homes And Two Firefighters. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/31/local/me-fire31
Nester, I. (Dec. 10, 2009). Burn Severity Map of the 2009 Station Wildfire in Southern California. Emporia State University. Retrieved from http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/student/nester4/fire.html
Sahagun, L. (Ap. 7, 2012). Reforestation Not Taking Hold in Land Burned by Station Fire. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/07/local/la-me-dead-trees-20120408
Schreiner, C. (n.d.). Fire Closures. Modern Hiker. Retrieved from http://www.modernhiker.com/fire-closures/
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