After an unusually dry summer, the wildfire season is already in full swing in the mountains of western Montana. With crews being called in from all over the country, it is essential that the staff at the Emergency Operations Center are able to efficiently communicate the latest information about the status of each fire. Mapping the progress of a fire and the location of critical resources are of utmost importance so a field-based GIS solution is called for. Needless to say, in a wildfire situation, time is in short supply so the relevant maps and location information must be quickly and easily transferred to the field crews.
Solution:
XMap 5.0 Professional offers a mobile GIS solution that is ideally suited for emergency situations such as this. Using XMap 5.0 GIS Editor at the EOC, field collected data about the extent of the fire is used to create a GIS data layer. This is superimposed on a three-dimensional satellite map of the area, which allows the EOC staff to more accurately forecast the path of the blaze and to allocate resources accordingly. Contours derived from XMap’s USA Topographic base map convey detailed information on the lay of the land. Additional points indicate the position of water supplies, helicopter landing sites, and optimal drop points for smoke jumpers. Ground and airborne crews using ruggedized computers, on which XMap 5.0 Professional is installed, are provided with these GIS data layers in DeLorme Openspace format and are quickly able to utilize XMap’s GPS navigation tools to effectively respond to the emergency.
Built With:
XMap 5.0 Professional
BaseMap:
SAT-10 satellite imagery USA Topographic Data for elevation, contours and 3-D terrain modeling
User Additions:
Openspace GIS layers showing the extent of the fire and critical points that (created using XMap 5.0 GIS Editor and shared as Openspace Transfer files)
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