GIS Analysis and Remote Sensing Support Southern California Wildfire Response: Vast Array of Applications Give Numerous Agencies the Benefit of Spatial Analysis, High-Powered Visualization

摘要

Years of drought, a bark beetle infestation, hot and dry weather conditions, and other factors contributed to the barrage of Southern California wildfires in the fall of 2003 Hundreds of thousands of acres of land and thousands of homes were destroyed; dozens of local, state, and federal agencies and thousands of emergency responders worked around the clock to put out the fires. The use of GIS and remote sensing data proved an invaluable tool for sharing information, cooperative planning, inter-agency preparedness, response, mitigation, and post-event recovery and planning.