Web-based mapping applications in response to wildland fire
Elizabeth Lile
USGS Rocky Mountain Mapping Center US Geological Survey
P.O. Box 25046, MS 516 Denver, CO 80225
Abstract
Wildland fire coordination centers have the difficult task of determining where to position
critical wildland firefighting resources. This task is compounded when several large fires occur
simultaneously across vast geographic areas. The 2002 fire season was the largest season in
the past 50 years. As of October 2002, 68,230 fires burned 6.7 million acres; nearly double the
10-year average. The best information available to the Multi-Agency Geographic Area
Coordination Committees for prioritizing requests for firefighting resources has been the
National Situation Report, a daily textual report of large fires updated by the National
Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). The use of web-based mapping applications, GeoMAC in
particular, as a wildland fire management tool for evaluating and assessing resources at risk
has shown great success. The public has shown a tremendous interest in GeoMAC as a source
of wildland fire information. The GeoMAC website experienced over 50 million requests
during the 2002 fire season. By integrating various data sets into a single source and making
the information available via the world-wide web people are able to obtain more information
than ever before about the potential risks posed by wildland fires to lives and property.
Background
GeoMAC (Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination) is an interactive web-mapping tool that
shows information about wildland fires. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in
Boise, Idaho sponsors the site. The US Geological Survey (USGS) has been the primary
developer and has hosted the site since 2000. The GeoMAC Team includes U.S. Forest
Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau
of Indian Affairs, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather
Service and USGS.
Wildland fire coordination centers have the difficult task of determining where to position
critical wildland firefighting resources. This task is compounded with the increasing number of
large fires occurring simultaneously across vast geographic areas. According to the
National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, at one
point in time during the FY2000 wildland fire season, more than
1 million acres were burning in 84 fires across Arizona,
California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and
Wyoming. The best information available to the Multi-Agency Geographic Area
Coordination Committees (GACCs) for prioritizing requests for firefighting resources has been
the National Situation Report or Sit Report, a daily textual report of large fires created by
NIFC.
To provide the GACCs with additional geospatial information, an interagency team of
wildland fire and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists, the Geospatial Multi-
Agency Committee (GeoMAC), was assembled in August 2000 under the Incident Command
System. The group was tasked with the implementation of a World Wide Web-based map
application combining current wildland fire intelligence information with geospatial data, to
streamline information processing. Users would be able to visually evaluate the wildland fire
situation across a broad geographic area, as well as at the local incident level. GeoMAC
provided fire coordination center managers, dispatchers, fire-intelligence officers, fire-behavior
analysts, local and national Incident Management Teams with data and tools tailored to their
needs. The initial development was done as a real-time response to wildland fire managers’
requirements that were being defined as the application was built. In a period of less than 2
weeks, the GeoMAC project progressed from conception to full implementation.
GeoMAC 2002
Figure 1: GeoMACs initial page.
The current public site built is on the success of the GeoMAC development as a wildland fire
management tool for evaluating and assessing resources at risk. The original scope of the
project was to provide information at the strategic overview level. The value of displaying
seamless integrated data layers in conjunction with fire specific data over the web as a public
information tool soon became apparent. Accessing the Wildfire Mapping section of the
application, users are able to view fire perimeters in relation to base layer information such as
roads, and communities. They are also able to view the fires in relation to other fires, satellite
data, and Remote Access Weather Station (RAWS) data.
