Abstract

Sierra Wildland Fire Reporting Systems (SWFRS) and the Fire Data Ordering Website. J. Guthrie and J. Stefanacci. Presentation at: Resource Management Tools & Geospatial Conference. April 18-22, 2005, Phoenix, AZ.

The fire management community in the southern Sierra Nevada faces complex issues both in responding to wildfires and completing prescribed fire projects. The Sierra Nevada has highly fragmented ownership patterns and substantial and increasing human encroachment on native, fire dependent ecosystems. Increased fuel loadings after nearly 100 years of fire suppression has increased the potential for catastrophic fires and the need for prescribed fire programs to reduce fuel loadings and protect human and ecological values. Additionally, severe air quality and smoke emission issues in the San Joaquin Valley require that the federal agencies maintain an integrated dataset of current fire activity to negotiate with the California Air Quality Board. The USGS Geography Division, Rocky Mountain Mapping Center ( RMMC), Southern Sierra Fire Management officers in cooperation with the Southern Sierra Geographic Information Cooperative (SSGIC) are developing an ArcIMS enabled website administered by the RMMC to help manage the fire tracking needs. The success of this project are expanding from the SSGIC group to the Southern Sierra Fire Management Officers (SSFMO) group in 2004. The member agencies of the SSFMO include four national forests (Inyo, Stanislaus, Sequoia and Sierra), two national parks (Sequoia & Kings Canyon and Yosemite), and the Bakersfield field office of the Bureau of Land Management. The project area encompasses nearly 7.4 million acres of the southern Sierra Nevada. The SSFMO website, still under development, is WEBSITE: http://sierrafire.cr.usgs.gov/swfrs/

The USGS has implemented an internet-based geospatial data ordering service for Geographic Information Systems specialists, Infrared interpreters, and wildland fire managers to use with wildfire applications. The application has an interactive display function to be able to view maps integrated with current wildfire information. The application is further enhanced with the capability to provide seamless data with tone balancing, reprojection, and mosaicing Digital Raster Graphics (DRG), Digital Orthophoto Quads, Digital Elevation Models, Shaded Relief and DRG/Shaded Relief blends. Vector data is available and includes fire perimeters, past fire locations, weather information, and base map data. The data is automatically generated and made available for users to download or by CD-ROM.