Lab #8: Los Angeles Station Fire

The Station Fire started in the Angeles National Forest near the U.S. Forest Service ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway, which is the California State Highway No. 2. The Station Fire started on August 25, 2009 and it ended on October 16, 2009. More than 160,00 acres and 209 structures were destroyed. In this wildfires, there were two firefighters killed while attempting to escape the flames when their fire truck plunged off a cliff. The wildfire costs the state over $93.8 million to fight. The map above showed the spread of the fire from Aug 29 2009 to Sep 02 2009. It was the first week of the wildfire started. The map shows that the fire was spreading from the south to the north and the area was getting much larger than the previous time. Some of the features on the map such as river and streams, and major highways will refer to my writing on the consequences of the Station Fire.
In this map, it shows several features with cities, river and streams, major highways, and the California park. The Station Fire has affected the mostly the California State highway No. 2. From the map, most of the part of highway No. 2 is in the area of the station fire. The Station Fire also affected many of the rivers and streams system as shown above. And the large park area as shown in the map above is affected by the Station Fire. Several cities on the map such as Altadena, La Canada Flintridge and La Crescenta Montrose are so close to the Station Fire or even inside the fire perimeters. The fire has affected many area or living things in Los Angeles.
The Station Fire affects many aspects in Los Angeles. First, the smoke from the Station Fire rose over downtown Los Angeles. Residents of Los Angeles were contending with thick smoke and ash hanging in the air, causing air quality to drop to unhealthy levels. Many residents in Los Angeles caused sick or respiratory diseases with the smoke. Los Angeles is one of the busiest county in California. The Station Fire caused the California Highway No. 2 to be closed. Although it is not the busiest highway in California, many Los Angeles residents use this freeway to by-pass the traffic in peak hours. This burdens the heavy traffic in peak hours in Los Angeles. 
The map shows that the river and streams system was affected by the Station Fire as long as the Station Fire happened in the park. It must affected the living habitat and living things around there. The first thing is the huge amount of forest lost to Station Fire. The Station Fire was happened in the Angeles National Forest in which the location of the valuable forest. What have caught my attention are the dozens of prized outdoor recreation spots in the Angeles National Forest now consigned to memory, obliterated in the furnace of the wildfire. Some locations like the famous Vetter Mountain Lookout of the San Gabriels’ chaparral-covered slopes, meadows, streams, forests, and Mojave Desert and L.A. Basin views. Moreover, thousands of acres of old-growth chaparral were lost, and as is the case with the frequent fire pattern currently at work in Southern California, the way has been cleared for aggressive, non-native grasses and other plants to move in, increasing the risk of fire in the near future, and making it more difficult for the natural ecosystem of the region to re-establish itself. Since fires become more frequent in Southern California, it seems people will forget California’s chaparral.
In conclusion, the Station Fire affects many aspects of lives in California, from the Los Angeles's resident's health to the living things around the Angeles National Forest. Is there a possible way to control the happening of fire? There are many factors causing fire such as the climate of California and human neglect. One interesting fact is that wildfire is supposed to happen because it is the main natural disturbance. The fire is actually beneficial to the re-growth of plants.


Reference:
1. “2009 California Wildfires.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 1 Nov. 2010. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires>.
2. "Wildfires in Southern California" The Big Picture-News stories in photographs, 2 Sep 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2010. <http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.html>
3. "Consequences of the Station Fire" Treehuggers International. 27 Sep 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2010
<http://treehuggersintl.com/2009/consequences-station-fire/>
4."'Angry fire' roars across 100,000 California acres". CNN U.S. 31 Aug 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2010
<http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-31/us/california.wildfires_1_mike-dietrich-firefighters-safety-incident-commander?_s=PM:US>
5. "Huge amount of forest lost to Station Fire" Los Angeles Times. Aug 30 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2010
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/08/huge-amounts-of-forest-lost-to-station-fire.html>
6. "Empty debris basins wait for Station Fire's winter impact" Southern California Public Radio 89.3 KPCC. 16 Nov 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2010
<http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/11/16/station-county/>

Lab #6 DEMs in ArcGIS

For this week's lab, I have chosen the location the east of San Francisco. That is the East Bay Area. I used to live around this place. My living place was really close to the freeway-680 and the Mountain Diablo. The reason for me to choose this location because I really want to discover more around that area. By downloading the data from USGS, I can make the maps and models for this lab. The 3-D model shows that the area that I choose is a mountainous area. There are high and low mountains or hills in that area. Although I am not sure the map or model that I made is correct, it is a good experience for me to explore the area.

Extent information:
Top: 37.8592
Left: -122.1836
Right: -121.9997
Bottom: 37.7317

Geographic coordinate system:
North American Datum 1983
UTM Zone 10

Lab Assignment #5

Lab #5 is all about the application of ArcGIS. We used ArcGIS in the last lab to learn the basic. In this lab, we use ArcGIS for map projections of the world. Map projection is any method that allow us to represent the surface of a sphere on a plane surface. To be simple, it allows us to represent a 3-D image to a 2-D image. There are many methods to project the earth. In this lab, there are 3 types of map projections. They are conformal, equal-area and equidistant. There are two examples showed under each map projections.

The first type of map projections are conformal. Gall Stereographic and Mercator projection are shown above. A conformal map means it preserves angle equally where the parallels and meridians are in perfect 90 degrees right angle. This kind of map will clearly display every landmass on the earth. However, since the conformal map projections preserve angle equally, the location and size of landmass on the maps and distance between them may be distorted. Conformal projection is not a good choice to measure the distance because that will be the distance will be much over than the actual distance.

Mollweide and Bonne projections are shown in above. They are the examples of equal area map projection. Equal area projections preserve the area or amount the space with features. For example, the area of Mexico and Greenland is similar. In the above example, the two territories are approximately the same size. However, equal area projections preserve area only. They distort all other properties such as shape, distance and direction. Equal area projections are useful in comparing the size or the area on a feature on the map.

 

The third type of map projections are equidistant. Equidistant conic and plate carree are two examples for equidistant map projections. Equidistant map projections preserve the distance between two points or the distance of a line on the map. That means when centered at any given point on the map that a straight line radiating from the center to any other point represents the shortest distance and can be measured to scale. Equidistant projection will only preserve distance on the map because area and shape will be distorted in the map. 

Lab Assignment #4 ArcGIS

This is the first time for me to use a geographical information system software. I actually had a hard time in doing the tutorial because I am not good at controlling the program on the computer. I like reading maps but this is the first time for me to do maps. I repeated the tutorial more than three times and I tried to feel comfortable with the ArcGIS. Right now, I feel much better after repeating the tutorial. This is a good experience for me to know more about geographical information system.

Although I had a hard time in using ArcGIS, I think it is straightforward and easy to use for most people. The user can read and store the data easily on the computer. All of the data can show at a time just like the exercise I did here. Although it can become complicated when more than 1 layers come together in the system, it is a good way to show the related information that the user need to know. I really like the part that except the stored data, most of the part you can design on your own. For example, the legend and the scale can resize and reposition all the time. User can use different color in the legend to represent different things and it may not confuse others.

ArcGIS can provide useful information to everyone, from public to business. From this ArcGIS exercise, we can notice the noise area of an airport and the potential noise impact that schools in the area may receive. It provides an useful information to the public that the impact of the airport to its surrounding area. In other words, ArcGIS can provide information like population density in the area. For those people who would like to have business in particular area, they can notice if the area is heavily populated or not. It provides any kind of information that may help people to make their decision in a wisely way. 

Last but not least, there is pitfall with ArcGIS. I believe that ArcGIS is an useful tool for many aspects of the world. However, it is too expensive to afford the cost of the software. This is a reason for ArcGIS is more available to government, business and school to do research, but not the public. ArcGIS is an useful tool in daily life. I hope the cost of the software will be lowered in the future so more people can get access into this useful tool. People will get more aware into their surrounding area and environment.