Wildfire Maps Support FEMA Relief Mission

December 19, 2007 By: JoAnne Castagna

At least 1,500 homes were destroyed in the 2007 California wildfires, and more than 500,000 acres of land burned from Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border. Maps of damaged structures, flood plains, and soil burn severity are among those USACE prepared to help FEMA aid those displaced by the catastrophe.

Blazing out of control, wildfires swept across southern California this fall, leaving death and destruction in their path. Twenty raging brush fires were fanned by strong winds that quickly spread to seven counties. Major factors contributing to the extreme fire conditions included drought, hot weather, and unusually strong Santa Ana winds, with gusts reaching 85 miles per hour.

This neighborhood in southern California was engulfed in flames when wildfires made their way across the region. Image courtesy of FEMA Joint Field Office.

More than 6,000 American firefighters worked to fight the blazes; they were aided by units of the United States Armed Forces, the United States National Guard, almost 3,000 prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes, and 60 firefighters from the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Tecate. Nine people died as a direct result of the fire; 85 others were injured, including at least 61 firefighters. Homes were burned to the ground, hundreds of acres of forest were destroyed, and thousands were left homeless -- including people, pets, and wild animals that called the forest their home.

What was needed was a precise method to help in locating and assisting those displaced people. In response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sought GIS assistance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). USACE produced maps that helped FEMA to identify territories affected in scorched counties, to locate displaced people requiring assistance (such as temporary trailers), and to protect the state from potential safety hazards that may result from these fires in the future. This mission continued to move forward in December with the help of the maps, which cover the 500,000 acres of land that were burned.

"We used a lot of different data from a lot of different sources to perform analyses and create GIS mapping products," said Chad Markin, a geographer and GIS coordinator with USACE's Rock Island District who was deployed to California in support of the mission. "This included aerial photography -- pre- and post-event, satellite imagery, commercial data sources, and vector data from varying sources in the field that includes things like fire perimeters, ignition points, and burn intensity data."