Initial Publication Date: June 22, 2010
Week 8: Monitoring Fires
On This Page
Getting to Know Cartography in My World
Launch My World and Open the Aspen Fire Project
Investigate the Spread of Fire with Database Queries
Create a Map to Tell a Story of Interest to You
Resources
Movies on this Page
Launch My World and Open the Aspen Fire Project
Investigate the Spread of Fire with Database Queries
- Create and execute a query that shows how far the fire spread on the first day
- Create a Query to Find Out How Many Acres Burned by the End of Day 2
- Create a Query to Find Out How Many Acres Burned by the End of Day 3
- Create a Query to Find Out How Many Acres Burned by the End of Day 4
- Select by Distance to Find Parcels within One Mile on Day 1
- Show the Results of the Spatial Query
- Repeat to Find the Parcels within a Mile of the Fire on Days 2, 3, and 4
Create a Map to Tell a Story of Interest to You
Resources
Movies on this Page
Getting to Know Cartography in My World
On this page, you'll review database and spatial querying as well as practice symbolizing and classifying data. You'll also find out how to gather statistics on numeric fields that you query.
top of pageLaunch My World and Open the Aspen Fire Project
- Launch My World by double-clicking its icon on your desktop or by clicking its icon in the Dock (Mac) or Launch Bar (Win).
- Choose File > Open Project, navigate to My World/Data/AspenAE, select the AspenFireMW.m3vz file, and click Open.
- When the project opens, the base map displays a satellite image of Earth.
The image is part of the Blue Marble collection at NASA. It is a composite generated from several different types of data. Much of the data comes from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, a remote sensing device on the Terra satellite. Latitude and longitude lines are visible on top of the image.
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Investigate the Spread of the Fire with Database Queries
You might wonder . . . How far did the fire spread and how many acres did it consume by the end of Day 1? Day 2? Day 3? Day 4? Use database queries to find out.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the Layer List. Turn off the Blue Marble Earth image. Then turn on the Shaded Relief and False Color Aerial images plus the Daily Fire Perimeter layer. Zoom in until you can clearly see the perimeter lines.
- Open the Table of Layer of the Daily Fire Perimeter layer and scroll across the table until you find the ACRES field.
- Close the Table of layer "Daily Fire Perimeter". top of page
- In the Selection Attribute table, notice that 52.0807 acres burned that first day.
- After executing the query, click the statistics button to see the statistics of the selection. Notice that nine features (values) are now selected.
- Use the Statistics button in the Visualize (map) window to find out how many total acres burned.
- Close the Statistics for Selection window. top of page
- Close the Statistics window. Click the All (Highlighting off) radio button in the layer's selection list.
- The Shaded Relief and False Color Aerial images plus the Daily Fire Perimeter layer should still be on. In addition, turn on the Parcel Status layer and Zoom to Active Layer. top of page
- In Analyze Mode, choose Select By Spatial Relationship... by Distance [thumbnail XXXX 25]. Select records from Parcel Status that are less than one mile from the Day 1 (617) fire.
- The map window shows all Parcel Status records that are within one mile of the fire highlighted in magenta. top of page
- To see the results of the spatial query, make the Parcel Status the active layer and open the Table of the Selection. The number of records selected is at the top left of the Attribute table. Scroll down the table to see all the records.
- The number of parcels selected is shown at the top left of the table.
- How many parcels were selected?
- Close the Selection table. top of page
- For Day 2...
How many parcels were selected? - For Day 3...
How many parcels were selected? - For Day 4...
How many parcels were selected? - To create a new project file, select File > New Project. My World will ask if you want save the project that you have open. Click No.
- Click the Import New Layer from File
button. Choose files format "TIFF and GeoTIFF Images". Navigate to the data folder where the image is saved, select the Feb2010_Fire.TIFF, and click Open. The image is located correctly so click OK in the next window that Opens. - This is the map with the Feb2010_Fire.TIFF image turned on. The image shows fires active across the globe during February 2010. The data come from the MODIS satellite. It was downloaded from NASA Earth Observations (NEO) site as a GeoTIFF file. It was downloaded at the 0.25 resolution, so as not to slow down the rate at which layers are drawn. Some of the points may have been lost in this reduction.
While it is a pretty picture, it is hard to interpret this raster data without the addition of vector data to orient our brains.
- In Construct mode, click and drag the Countries layer from the Data Library to the Layer List to add it to the map. Place it on top of the image. If you need to move this vector layer above the fire image layer, click and drag it up the Layer List.
- The Countries layer is now on the map and visible, but it is hiding the layer below it. Edit the properties of the Countries layer so that only the outlines are visible on top of this predominately black image.
- Now the image makes more sense to our brains. It has been given context by the Countries outline.
top of page - Explore more fire data by adding the FEB_2010_MODIS.shp layer to the project.
- To look for patterns in the fire data, return to Visualize mode and in the Edit Appearance of Layer window classify the layer by Julian date field. Break the classification into four classes of graduated symbols using an equal interval classification. By using four classes you are breaking up the month's worth of data into weekly intervals. The Julian calendar is often used in science. On a Julian calendar, January 1 is day one of the year and December 31st is day 365.
- Make FEB_2010_MODIS.shp the active layer by clicking on its name in the Layer List. Then click the Zoom to Active Layer
button.
- What state and region had the most fires in February?
- Choose File > Save As.. and navigate to the AspenAE folder. Name your project Feb_Fires. My World will automatically add the appropriate extension (.m3vz) when you click Save.
- Create a new project and use at least two of the GIS analysis techniques you've learned in this module (database and spatial querying, symbolizing, classifying, adding latitude/longitude data, gathering statistics) to illustrate a story with data.
- Feel free to use any of the GIS data from any of the projects in this module. Be sure to look in the YellowstoneFireData that you will download in the next section of this week's material for all kinds of additional data to explore.
- If you like, you can go to NEO and download a GeoTIFF to bring in as a base layer for your project.
- Take a screenshot of your map when you have finished it. If you like what you have created then save your project.
- 60 Minutes Program "Age of Megafires" viewable online. Shows the results of the Aspen Fire Age of Megafires
- Wildland Fire Graphics and information from CBS News Wildland Fire
- Click the link to go to the SERC media library listing for the movie. The record will open in a new window.
- On the SERC media library page, right-click (Win) or control-click (Mac) the link (below the movie on the Flash version pages) to download the movie file to your hard drive.
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The ACRES field indicates the number of acres consumed by the fire, feature by feature. You'll notice that a single day frequently consists of several features displayed as polygons that show the area of the fire each day. We'll ask My World to select these, highlighting them together.
Create and execute a query (selection) that shows how far the fire spread on the first day
How would you write the query statement?
Use the Analyze mode to find out how many acres burned by the end of Day 2
Hint: To find out how many acres burned by the end of the second day, execute a query (selection) that selects the records of areas that burned on both June 17 and June 18, 2003.
How would you write the query statement?
The Statistics includes the Sum which sums the acres burned for each day. The query you built selected all the features from Day 1 and Day 2. So, by the end of the second day, the fire had covered 461.8507 acres.
Create and execute a query to find out how many acres burned by the end of Day 3
How would you write the query statement? How many acres burned? top of pageCreate and execute a query to find out how many acres burned by the end of Day 4
How would you write the query statement? How many acres burned?
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Investigate the Spread of the Fire with Spatial Queries
You might wonder . . . How many Parcels were within one mile of the fire on Day 1? Day 2? Day 3? Day 4? Use spatial queries to find out.
Select by distance: find parcels that are within one mile of the fire on Day 1
Show the results of the spatial query
Repeat the steps above to find the parcels that were within one mile of the fire on days two, three, and four
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Create a New Project to Explore Additional Fire Data
Now that you have explored a specific fire (the Aspen fire), you will broaden your focus to look at fires globally and in the U.S. You will create a new project, add image and vector data and symbolize it as needed to help you visualize patterns in fire data.
top of pageWhere were the fires in February 2010?
How Do Fire Prone Areas Change throughout the year?
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Create a Map to Tell a Story of Interest to You
This is the screenshot that you will post to your discussion group for your required weekly assignment.
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Movies on this Page
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Flash Video Versions
Download these versions to play on your computer. You'll need an appropriate movie player to view the file, such as Flash Player, Real Player (Mac / Win), or Adobe Media Player.
Investigating the Spread of the Fire Using Database Queries in My World
Investigating the Spread of the Fire Using Spatial Queries in My World
Creating a New Project in My Worldtop of page
iPod Versions
Download these version to play on your iPod or iPhone.
Investigating the Spread of the Fire Using Database Queries in My World
Investigating the Spread of the Fire Using Spatial Queries in My World
Creating a New Project in My World