Week 9 Lab Assignement – Fire Project

             For this project, I created a reference map showing the progression of the Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest as well as a thematic map. In my reference map, I included a base layer showing freeways and some other features such as names of mountain ranges and cities. To highlight these mountain ranges, I added a DEM. You can see that the fire began around the Hovt Mountain. From there the fire spread north deeper into the Angeles National Forest, with the rate of spread dramatically increasing on the evening of 8/30.

Although the fire’s northern trajectory was bad from an ecological standpoint, this was actually good from a social perspective because if it had gone southward, it may have ended up damaging more highly populated areas like Glendale and Burbank. The fire may have also had a smaller burn area if it had spread to the south since there is less flammable vegetation in such urban areas than in the forest.

 My thematic map shows the extent of the fire damage as well as group campsites in and around the burn area. The area closed for recovery due to fire damage is, unsurprisingly, identical to the widest perimeter of the area highlighted in my reference map as being on fire at some point in time (“Angeles National Forest Station Fire Recovery Area”). I chose to show the damaged area as a progression instead of just showing the total damaged area in one layer in order to emphasize which areas were on fire the longest and, thus, the most thoroughly damaged.

I chose campsite damage as my theme was because I was camping in the Angeles National Forest at the Table Mountain Campsite the weekend before we were given this lab assignment. As I was trying to reserve a group campsite for my friends and I, I noticed that some of the sites were still closed due to fire damage. Thus, I decided to map out how the fire burn area compared to the location of group campsites. I also indicated which campsites were still damaged at this point in time by marking those sites with a red point instead of a black point.

I chose to map group sites instead of all possible camping locations because there are over 53 camping areas in the Angeles National Forest, only 10 of which are group campsites. The other smaller sites tend to be small spaces along multi-day hiking trails, which can only accommodate as few as 4 people. In contrast, group campsites can accommodate 50-250 people. Thus, the loss of a group campsite would be more devastating from a recreation standpoint because they can accommodate a larger number of individuals, because much more effort goes into creating and establishing them, and because there are fewer of them in the forest.

After mapping out these campgrounds, I was surprised to find that only four group sites were even near the Station Fire. Some of the other sites such as the Chrystal Lake Group Campground were damaged by other fires, but most of the group campgrounds were spared or able to be easily restored. While the fire was still raging, it was reported that “The burn area includes 13 campgrounds and 11 picnic areas” (Behrens), but many of those grounds were small and easily restorable sites. Of the group campgrounds in or near the burn area, only Lighting Point is still closed due to damage from the Station Fire. Nonetheless this is a substantial loss because Lightning Point was one of the most popular campgrounds in the Angeles National Forest and it could accommodate up to 240 individuals.

I was originally surprised by how relatively light the damage to group campgrounds in the forest were. However, perhaps the group campsites were less likely to burn because they are surrounded by less dense of vegetation than smaller campsites (due to space cleared for parking, restrooms, tents, etc). This would make them less likely to burn as severely as smaller campgrounds and picnic areas. Furthermore, since more tax money is invested in group campgrounds (to build and maintain restrooms, the camp sites, the ranger’s cabin, etc), they were a higher priority for the fire department to protect.  

Bibliography

"Angeles National Forest Campgrounds." USDA Forest Service. United States Government, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/angeles/recreation/>.

"Angeles National Forest Campgrounds Guide." US National Forest Campground Guide. Moon Canyon Publishing, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.

"Angeles National Forest Station Fire Recovery Area." US Forest Service. US Department of Agriculture, 1 July 2011. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.fs.usda.gov/>.

"Angeles National Forest, CA." Recreation.gov. United States Government, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.recreation.gov/>.

Behrens, Zach. "Station Fire Status: 87% Contained, What Trails/Campgrounds Were Spared." LAist. N.p., 14 Sept. 2009. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://laist.com/>.

US Forest Service. US Department of Agriculture. Station Fire Restoration Fact Sheet. N.p., 15 Apr. 2011. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.fs.usda.gov/>.