During 2003, two large wildfires hit southern California. Emergency services were called to fight the wildfires and one of the effective tools used were fire-fighting airtankers. Several such fires are common in the state of California, and managing the fires requires the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) to maintain a fleet of airtankers at various airports across the state. However, some questions have been raised about the cost and locations of this extensive air tanker networks. It is well known that locating emergency services correctly is highly important in order to reduce response time. One method for identifying optimal locations in Euclidean space is Location-Allocation which minimizes the total travel time from supply locations (i.e., airports with airtankers) to the demand locations (i.e., centerpoint of fires). This thesis will explore using Location-Allocation to optimize the location of CDF airtanker airbases within California with respect to historical fires.
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