Lab #8: Station Fire

The Angeles National Forest is a protected area in southern California, within Los Angeles County and near the city of Los Angeles. The forest boasts over 650,000 acres of pristine wilderness that is commonly used recreationally for hiking, swimming, and other activities. The most common vegetation is chaparral, which is part of a fire-adapted ecosystem.

The Station Fire of 2009 in the Angeles National Forest burned over 160,000 thousand acres and resulted in multiple structure losses and two firefighter deaths. It was started by arson on August 16th, and full containment wasn't achieved until October 16th. It is considered as being of unprecedented magnitude for the area, and the 10th largest in California history. Because of it's location relative to the second largest city in the U.S., I decided to examine risk to human life if the fire had continued to spread.

My first diagram shows where the fire occurred in relation to the state of California. For all maps I used the fire boundary data from 9/02/2009 at roughly 1am. I did this because all other boundaries were found within this area, so it was the most accurate boundary for determining the fire's furthest extent.

Because the Station Fire occurred so close to Los Angeles, it seemed imperative that the fire's proximity to major cities be examined. The following map shows all major cities found within twenty miles of the fire. Each city's symbol is color-coded by population number. The map shows that major cities like Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena were all within 10 miles of the fire at it's peak. 

Because cities are not the only areas with human populations, I decided to examine further into how densely populated the areas surrounding the fire are. The map below shows urbanized areas, part of a California compilation of population data by ESRI. I chose to show population density by calculating population per square mile in Los Angeles County. As seen below, the fire crossed into somewhat densely populated areas. Fortunately, the populations below the forest are more sparsely populated than the areas closer to the major cities. Unfortunately, no detailed data for population per square mile of this area could be found by doing a data search online. 

With the information examined, I conclude that the Station Fire had the potential to be devastating to human life and structures. Other research would need to be done to determine the likelihood of that damage, such as vegetative cover, weather patterns, or the rate at which the fire spread. Fortunately, there probably won't be another massive fire in the area for a very long time.

Works Cited

"About the Forest." Angeles National Forest. U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
"Angeles National Forest Campgrounds." Campground Directory and National Forest Campgrounds. U.S. National Forest Campgrounds Guide. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. 

Angeles National Forest. Digital image. U.S. Senate. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. 

"GIS Data Downloads." Esri - The GIS Software Leader. ESRI. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. 

"Station Fire." Incident Information System. InciWeb. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.