Lab 8: GIS Application

   wind speed: 1 mph     

wind speed: 1 mph

 

wind speed: 1 mph

Why we let the fire burning for 5 days

   On August 29th 2009, northern Los Angeles met the “largest wildfire—Station Fire—in the modern history of Los Angeles County” (Bloomekatz).  The fire lasted for 5 days and destroyed 160,577 acres and 209 structures and even killed two firefighters. It was originally started at west part of Los Angeles and gradually enlarged to red perimeter till August 31th, 2009. After that, the fire was under control and progressively diminished and eventually eliminated. This passage associated with maps and a video is talking about the first three days of the Station Fire.

   It is rare to see a fire burning for days, especially for a highly developed country, so I was really astonished that how government could let the fire burning for 5 days. Therefore, I was trying to analyses the whole case from the view of wind, local topography, fire stations, US Forest Services and local eligible reinforcement. 

   According to the wind record in wunderground.com, “the average wind speed from August 29th to 31th is 1 mph with the direction to west and south”. However, the fire was rampantly spreading towards west mostly. Therefore, I thought the wind is not a major cause for the fire lasting for five days. On the other hand, wind direction may help to stop fire from running too fast towards north.

   From the 3D map and aspect map, we can easily figure out that the fire was climbing mountains. It is not hard to imagine that the smoke was rising to a higher position and made the vegetation on that position become more vulnerable and flammable. Moreover, the vegetation is much more flammable than urban city. Therefore, although the wind direction is on another way, forest fire is more likely climbing mountains and burning vegetation. 

   According to Los Angeles fire station distribution (2011), the density of fire stations is becoming dilute and dilute from the center of Los Angeles. Therefore, the ability to face a rampant fire is decreasing dramatically, especially in the mountain area. However, the heavy density of urban fire stations contributed to prevent fire from invading city. The density is another significant reason for why the fire did not go with wind as I mentioned above.

   Another thing is that fire fighters need more training for forest fire and more equipment for diminishing the forest fire. According to a video in YouTube, many heavy and efficient fire trucks cannot climb mountains so the fire fighters had to use the most basic equipment to fight with “the most serious wildfire in modern LA history”. If we could provide more handle and powerful equipment, the fire would not last for five days.

   Also, a passage in Huff Post Los Angeles stated that although at that time US Forest Service Department has owned some helicopters and aircrafts for fire extinguishing purpose, the administration could not fully use them and these high tech “fire extinguishers” could not successfully cooperate with each other. Therefore, both fire fighters and administrators should receive more training to improve their efficiency.

   Last but not least, sometimes when the fire becomes really serious like this “burning for five days”, we can call help from military I think. In 1999, there was a huge wild fire in northeast China and because the fire was enormously serious, the military gave hands to dig trenches to prevent further destruction. As for some air bases near Los Angeles, they could also send some helicopters to extinguish the wild fire.  

Reference

Bloomekatz, Ari B. (September 2, 2009). "Station fire is largest in L.A. County's modern history". Retrieved from Los Angeles Times http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/station-fire-is-largest-in-la-county-history.html

Fire Stations distributions 2011 retrieved from GIS online database.

Michael. Blood (2011) 2009 Los Angeles Station Fire Report Reveals Foggy Policies in The Forest Service Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/2009-los-angeles-wildfire-_n_1153695.html

The average wind speed and directions from August 29^th to August 31th, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.wunderground.com/history/ 

The video named Station Fire Compilation - August 28-30, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68uxWIDrnQ

Lab 7: Racial Population Distribution

The picture above shows the percentage of black population across the Continental US. We could easily see that the major population is located along southeastern coast. It reminds me of the Atlantic slave trade from 16th to 19th. At that time, there were numerous plantations in south part of US (only part of today's US) and owners needed a huge amount of labor, so black people were sent to these places. Although black Americans got freedom after American Civil War, most of them did not move around or relocated. Probably because of the discrimination, they did not receive high level education and were lack of skills and technology. Fortunately, things get better after Obama took office. It not only reveals the social recognition for black people, but also brings US to a real multicultural country.

 

This map shows the Asian population across the Continental US and most of these Asian people were originally from China. Asian people, unlike black people, were located along southwest coast with less population density. People always remember the black slavery trade, while ignore the Chinese slavery trade, because it last much less time, transported much less people and the most important reason is that Chinese or say Asian people seldom complain about that and seldom organize demonstrations. The US merchants bought Chinese slavery after the State banned the black slavery. Because merchants and government needed a huge amount of labors for railroad construction (the main reason as the most of Chinese know), they deceived Chinese that they need many miners to dig gold in today’s San Francisco. Their real purpose was to let Chinese built railroad for Westward Movement. Therefore the great honor of Westward Movement, technically, should be given to Industrious Chinese people. Unfortunately, most Chinese workers did not speak English, so they did not even know their right or speak for themselves after they found they were cheated.

The third map is about some other races population across Continental US. From the map we can see that most of these people covered a huge land in southwest. I guess these people should consist of many Mexicans and Latinos. Most of them may come through the border between US and Mexican. Since they live near US and some of their ancestors were born in US (their birthplace may be not the US territory at that time), they face nearly zero discrimination. Therefore they could easily move around US and their language has been the second popular language in US.

Knowing the racial population distribution is crucial for a country’s policy and development. Therefore producing, understanding and analyzing this kind of distribution map are a group of competitive ability in today’s society. Geography knowledge and information may not come only from geography. They may also come from history and many other humanity sciences. Hence, in order to analyzing geography data extremely specify and comprehensively, especially like this, we need not only know how to use computer and ArcGIS well but also search enough information or gain plenty of background knowledge. Moreover, this map looks very helpful for economy study. In a long run, producing this kind of map could also help students to build high level interdisciplinary integrity.