The Station fire started in August 26 and was fully contained by October 16.  This horrible event claimed the lives of two firefighters and 89 homes. The fire affected 160,577 acres, most of it forest land. Investigators claim the fire was caused by arson. It is the 10^th largest fire in modern California history.

The pattern of growth of the fire was in all directions except southwestern. The fire torched the forest and wildlife in the park but did not expand as much into the urbanized regions. Also the fire seems to have slowed down (or it been contained) once it reached a certain area. The initial growth was northwestern but headed east in the third and fourth day.

           I chose the map theme to be the fire hydrant layer. When combating urban fires, fire hydrants are a necessity, for it eases the firefighters water concerns and transportation. Since the fire started in the Angeles National Forest, fire fighters had no access to fire hydrants, which you can see in the map. The map shows that the fire did not grow south once fire hydrants were accessible, as compared to its growth in the other directions. My hypothesis derived from this map is that the availability of fire hydrants contributed to the slowdown of the fire. You can see that once it reached urbanized regions, the fire did not exceed that boundary but continued to expand through wildlife. 

          Fighting fire in urbanized locations has its own set of characteristics. The benefits are easier mobilization, with road access, and easier water resources. The drawbacks are the imminent danger for the human population. City fires are more dangerous for people and homes, with other dangers that can occur from this, including pipe damage and gas leaks, which can lead to a faster growing fire.

         Combating fires in wildlife has many drawbacks. The blaze easily feeds and grows from the abundant fuel in its surrounding. It is harder and more costly to navigate through forests and supply water and other containment strategies. Forest fires grow exponentially if not contained earlier on. The one benefit is the threat of human deaths is smaller.

Works Cited:

Greninger, MArk. Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS. (2012): n. page. Print. <http://egis3.lacounty.gov/eGIS/>. 

. "California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection." CA.gov. State of California, 16 Oct 2009. Web. 13 Jun 2012. <http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=377 >. 

. "2009 California Wildfire." Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia Foundation, 2 Jun 2012. Web. 13 Jun 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_California_wildfires >. 

. "GIS Data for LA County." Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal. N.p., 23 May 2012. Web. 13 Jun 2012. <http://egis3.lacounty.gov/dataportal/index.php/category/theme/infrastructure/ >.

. "Mapping is not just for the experts." Mapshare. N.p., 18 Feb 2009. Web. 13 Jun 2012. <http://gis.ats.ucla.edu/ >.

This is the African American population percentage map. From a historical perspective, this map shows a denser population of Blacks in what used to be the Cotton Belt back in the 19th century. It is surprising the number of counties that have no black residents; most of these are in the northern plains. The greater population density outside of the southern states are found in counties that contain major cities.

This Asian Population Percentage Map shows that a large majority of the Asians in this country live in California and New York. Also tied historically, Asians first arrived to this country through San Francisco and others through New York City. I like to point out that Orange County (where I live) is ranked 15 most populated by Asians. Especially in Irvine, where good school and a suburban landscape attract immigrants.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and gamble many of these races are of Hispanic decent, with most of the western states populated by Mexicans and Florida by Cubans/Caribbean states. It is interesting how the deeper one goes into the country, there is less diversity of races, evident throughout all three maps. This is a wonderful country, and I'm proud to say I'm an immigrant. Working with GIS has been both instructional and enlightening. I like how easy it is to work with GIS platforms and how easy it is to integrate and manipulate information with these programs. It is a very useful tool, and as a hopeful Civil Engineer I am glad I can include this on my resume.

I selected the San Francisco Bay Area because of its contrast in elevation. Its extent is from 38.064166666 to 37.5897222215 North and from -122.685833335 to -121.831111112 West. The Spatial reference is from GCS North American 1983.

Conformal Projections- 
The Two Conformal Projections I picked are the Mercator and the Stereographic. The Mercator was very useful in nautical travel because it accurately represented rhumb lines. But the scale increases as you leave the equator. The stereographic projection is a type of azimuthal projection that preserves angles (as all conformal projections do).

 Equal Area Projections-
Sinusoidal projection maintains equal area despite its conformal distortion (that's why the projection is also known as the Mercator equal area projection). The Mollweide is a pseudocylindrical projection with the equator and meridian meeting in right angles.

Equidistant Projections-
The Plate Carree is a relatively simple and common projection for it forms a rectangular grid with equal spacing. Though not very useful for navigation, it has been widely adopted for its simplicity and easy-to-use characteristics. The Azimuthal Equidistant is useful in that all measurements from the center of the map are accurate, but only from the center. Often the center are the poles or the intersection of the equator and prime meridian.










Depicting a 3 dimensional ellipsoid on a flat surface will always suffer from some distortions or obstacles. With the emergence of GPS and satellite imaging many of these maps have grown obsolete. Because each projection must sacrifice some aspects of its depiction to accurately represent another, there cannot be one universally useful map. They are at the mercy of the user's needs.

Map projections have been a necessity ever since man decided to leave his cave. They have provided us with guidance in the most trying of times, and have lead us to discoveries of new worlds. Much of this planet has been stepped on (not all, but most) and maps have greatly evolved since the dawn of time. Though maps continue to be used everyday, they are slowly losing their market and usefulness with the everyday user.

What is replacing them? Smartphones. Ability to conjure a map on our handheld device has eliminated the need to carry a map with us. Paths are no longer found by intuition but by computer programs.

The majority of the population has been exposed to maps, but whether they have been exposed to all types of maps is not a question or debate. There is no need for the majority of the population to identify the difference between projections, and they cant be expected to understand the differences and advantages of each.

I must say, my experience with ArcMap was more pleasant than I anticipated. The tutorial was very thorough and simple enough to follow. I was frustrated at first because I could not remote access the computer lab so I worked in the lab itself. Except for the one hiccup that happened when I first saved the document, it was smooth sailing from there on. I really like ingenuity and straightforwardness of the program ad I hope to develop more skills with this. 

This is a very useful tool, especially for civil engineers (my future aspiration). This program has plenty of useful applications for research and construction. I have no knowledge of the history of this program, but seeing as I used the tenth version, it has probably been around for some years now. I see this as a very successful product but I don't know enough about its competition to give my opinion that much importance.

With what I know, one of the pitfalls for this program might be the learning curve. Much like most Office or desktop programs, it is the success of the initial exposure that determines if the user will pursue mastering it. It is simple, but it has a multitude of applications that might turn the feeble or non-expert away. I compare this to excel. Most people can use it simply, make tables and simple spreadsheets without ever exploring its full capabilities, and then there will be the few that depend on it and succeed in mastering it.

This program (like excel) has a lot of potential. A lot of use, but only in specific fields. Its market is not as big as compared to other computer programs (eg. Word, power point) so it might not fare well in the business side. GIS are very useful in our daily lives for demographic studies and research, and we need to continue on improving these systems to better study human population and the world we populate. 

My Map link for Google Maps

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ll=48.867693,2.326763&spn=0.009528,0.026157&t=m&z=16&vpsrc=6&msa=0&msid=200068501299492672193.0004be8c902f117ae062e

Lab 2

Lab 2: The 7.5 Minute Map

1. What is the name of the Quadrangle?
   --The Beverly Hills Quadrangle


2. What are the names of the adjacent Quadrangles?
   --Adjacent Quadrangles North of it (from west to east): Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank
      Adjacent Quadrangle west of it: Topanga
      Adjacent Quadrangle east of it: Hollywood
      Adjacent Quadrangles South and Southeast of it: Venice, Inglewood


3. When was the quadrangle first created?
   --1966


4. What datum was used to create your map?
    --North American Datum  of 1927
       and North American Datum of 1983


5. What is the scale of the map?
   -- 1 : 24,000


6. At the above scale, answer the following:
    a. 5 cm on map =   1200m on ground
    b. 5 in on map = 1.893939 miles on ground
    c. 1 mile =  2.64 in on map
    d. 3 km =   12.5 cm on map


7. What is the contour interval on your map?
    --20 feet


8. What are the approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of:
    a. the Public Affairs Building
       --    34° 4' 29", -118° 26' 21"
       --    34.0745,  -118.4393
    b. the tip of Santa Monica pier
       --  34° 0' 27", -118° 29' 59"
       --  34.00745, -118.49990
    c. The upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir:
       --  34° 7' 12", -118° 24' 37"
       --  34.12 , -118.410278


9. What is the approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:
    a. Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park)
        -- 480 ft (above sea level), 146.30 m
    b. Woodlawn cemetery
       -- 140 ft (above sea level), 42.67 m
    c. Crestwood Hills Park:
         --  700 ft (above sea level), 213.36 m


10. What is the UTM zone of the map?
-- 11


11. What are the UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of your map?/
--  11N 361472 Easting
             3763170 Northing


12.How many square meters are contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines?
-- 1,000 * 1,000 =  1,000,000 meters^2


13. Obtain elevation measurements from west to east along the UTM northing 3771000, where the eastings of the UTM grid intersect the northing. Create an elevation usinig these measurements in Excel (hint: create a line chart). Figure out how to label the elevation values to the two measurements on campus. Insert your elevation profile as a graphic in your blog.
-- West to East

520
600
640
520
520
440
400
320
300
240
200
160

14. What is the magnetic declination of the map?
-- 14° (East)


15. In which direction does water flow in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and Stone Canyon Reservoir?
-- North to South


16 Croup out UCLA from the map and include it as a graphic on your blog.