“In the end, what’s most remarkable about the campaign against Oregon’s wildfire map isn’t that misinformation found an audience. It’s that it worked.” ProPublica looks at how misinformation and conspiracy theories led to the downfall of Oregon’s wildfire hazard map.
Tag: wildfires
Wildfires in Canada
So we’ve had some wildfires on our plate here in Canada. CBC News has a page tracking wildfires in Canada, including maps of wildfire location, risk and smoke. Richard points out that FireSmoke Canada (previously) is a forecast map, not a map of actual conditions, for which see AQMap.ca, which tracks fine particulate (PM2.5) monitors across Canada.
Watch Duty
In the wake of the recent wildfires in southern California, Watch Duty—a simple, free app that provides real-time fire maps and alerts, and which prizes, and is prized for, accurate data, collated by its volunteer reporters—has become the most popular app on the App Store and is being hailed as an essential lifeline: see The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Verge, Washington Post (paywalls on some links).
California Wildfires, January 2025
Online maps of the current wildfires burning near Los Angeles:
- California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) has incident pages for the Eaton, Hurst and Palisades fires, plus this 3D incident map.
- The Los Angeles Times map marks fire origins and evacuation zones.
- Watch Duty is a nonprofit that also has an app.
Update, 3:50 PM EST (via Lauren Tierney):
- Esri’s Wildlife Aware map sorts fires by personnel assigned to fight them.
- Another 3D map from CAL FIRE.
Update, 10 Jan at 1:45 PM EST:
Update, 13 Jan at 9:35 PM EST:
- Good Maps of the L.A. Fires: “a summary of the geospatial industry’s efforts to map and analyse the L.A. fires over the past 5 days.” [via]
A Map of Wildfire Damage in Jasper, Alberta
Fire forced the closure and evacuation of Jasper National Park this week, and the Jasper townsite itself was directly hit by flames on Wednesday. Parks Canada estimates about a third of the town’s structures have been destroyed. Municipal officials released a preliminary map today showing the damaged and destroyed buildings in the town. They stress that the information “is based on the damage that is visible from the street. We have not been inside buildings or seen the backside of properties. There may be additional damage to homes and businesses that isn’t visible from the street. Buildings marked as ‘not damaged’ on the map could also have internal damage caused by smoke and water. Consider this a preliminary description of properties affected in Jasper.” CBC News coverage.
Canada’s Early Wildfire Season
Another year, another map from the European Space Agency showing the extent of Canada’s wildfires based on data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. It’s not nearly as bad as last year’s, but it’s way earlier. The above is a frame from an animated map showing carbon monoxide concentrations earlier this month. “The extremely high concentrations, depicted in dark shades of orange, can be linked to active fires during this time period.”
Previously: Two Ways to Visualize Canada’s Wildfires.
Two Ways to Visualize Canada’s Wildfires
The European Space Agency released this map showing the impact on atmospheric carbon monoxide from Canadian forest fires. “Using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P mission, the image shows the average concentration of carbon monoxide for 1 May to 13 June. The extremely high concentrations, which are depicted in deep tones of orange, can be linked to active fires during the time. The image also shows how this air pollutant was carried as far as New York in the USA and over the Atlantic.”
Also from the ESA: this animated map of fire outbreaks in Canada during the same period.
Previously: Fire and Smoke Forecast Maps; Wildfires in Alberta.
Fire and Smoke Forecast Maps
Last week my location was blanketed by smoke from forest fires in northern Quebec, with the air quality index pegged as high as it goes (which is to say, eleven). The iPhone’s default weather app has an air quality map that I made use of—you could actually see the fire hotspots—but there are other wildfire maps out there. For example: NOAA’s experimental interactive map based on its HRRR-Smoke model; AirNow’s Fire and Smoke Map; and the interactive smoke forecast from FireSmoke Canada. [Maps Mania]
Wildfires in Alberta
Here are some links to maps and satellite imagery of the wildfires devastating Alberta right now. The Alberta provincial government’s Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard shows active wildfires and historical data; CBC News has produced four maps that distill and simplify data from that dashboard. NASA Earth Observatory has images of the wildfires from the Terra satellite’s MODIS instrument.
Wildfire Aware
Wildfire Aware is an interactive map of wildfires in the United States that lists fires by the number of personnel fighting them. Selecting a fire brings up a lot more information, drawn on 22 layers from Esri’s ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. [ArcGIS Blog]
Google Maps Announcements
Google Maps updates this week: wildfires are getting their own dedicated layer in Google Maps; their tree canopy coverage tool is being expanded to 100 cities; and a new Address Maker app will make it possible to bulk-add Plus Codes to locations without addresses.
Mapping Climate Change’s Impact on California’s Fire Seasons
ProPublica maps the change in California’s fire seasons. “As California continues battling its worst wildfire season on record, new research shows that fall fire weather days—days with high temperatures, low humidity and high wind speeds—will double in parts of the state by the end of the century and will increase 40% by 2065. […] In the north, a summer fire season has been driven by high temperatures and low humidity. In Southern California, fall fire season is driven by east winds. With climate change, though, both the summer and fall fire seasons have grown longer, and are melting into each other, overlapping in time and space.” [Joshua Stevens]
California Wildfires: Mapping the Bigger Picture
Two maps:
John Nelson’s 100 Years of Wildfire is a static map showing a century of California wildfires, simplified into zones of 100 square miles. The map measures the cumulative burn area for each zone over that entire time: this can exceed 100 or even 200 percent if large fires are frequent enough, or the whole damn area burns down more than once.
The California Fire Observatory combines longer-term data about forest cover with up-to-date information about wildfire hotspots and wind speed. “We map the drivers of wildfire hazard across the state—including forest structure, weather, topography & infrastructure—from space. […] By providing these data for free we hope to support the development of data-driven land management strategies that increase wildfire resilience—for forests and communities—enabling people and nature to thrive.” [Maps Mania]
More on the Western U.S. Wildfires
NASA Earth Observatory has had several stories on the western U.S. wildfires, gathered here. This story summarizes the situation; satellite images of the smoke generated by the fires can be seen here, here and here.
In today's Sunday edition of @washingtonpost pic.twitter.com/qHosujRKrG
— Lauren Tierney (@tierneyl) September 13, 2020
Marena Brinkhurst of Mapbox has a comprehensive list of open data sources relating to the wildfires, smoke, and air quality.
Mark Altaweel at GIS Lounge looks at how GIS is being used to map wildfires, smoke and air pollution.
Previously: California Wildfires, 2020 Edition.
Tracking Amazon Fires
Last year saw an uptick in fire activity in the Amazon basin. This year a new tool has been released that aims to help classify the fires being observed. The Amazon Dashboard classifies each fire as a deforestation fire, a savanna fire, a small clearing and agricultural fire, or an understory forest fire, and tracks whether the fire is in a protected or indigenous territory. NASA Earth Observatory:
The fire analysis tool is already bringing new clarity and insight to the 2020 fire season. In July, Brazil announced a 120-day ban on fires in the Amazon rainforest; it was presented as an effort to limit ecological damage from fires this year. However, the NASA-led fire analysis indicates that there has been a proliferation of fires in key deforestation hotspots in the southern Amazon states of Pará, Mato Grosso, and Amazonas.
Previously: Mapping the Amazon Fires.