- Author: Shane Feirer
IGIS worked with UCANR Advisors Mike Jones, Rick Satomi, and Yana Valachovic to conduct two 2-day training workshops in Northern California the week of March 18th-23rd. These workshops were held in Santa Rosa, CA and Arcata, CA. and they were well attended by approximately 20 participants at each location. The intent of these workshops were to bring the participants up to speed on the latest GIS software (ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Online), best practices in cartography, managing data, and spatial analysis, and mobile data collection (ArcGIS Collector, ArcGIS Survey 123, and Azenva).
IGIS will conduct these workshops two more times in the coming months. These workshops will be held at the following locations and dates:
- Lake Tahoe Community College, April 25 – 26
- Shasta College, May 10 – 11
For More Information: Please see the following website: http://ceshasta.ucanr.edu/Forestry/ForestGIS/
Register now at: UCANR.EDU/GISWORKSHOP
- Contact: Shane Feirer
- Author: Yana Valachovic
Recently I was fortunate to work with the IGIS team in Santa Rosa and Sonoma to explore why so many homes and buildings were lost in the October Tubbs and Nuns Fires. With the IGIS's Shane Feirer we collected drone-based video to record how the fires burned through the vegetation near and around the lost structures.
We observed several sites where there was little fire activity in the forests or woodlands, yet the homes burned. This type of video helps us document how devastating a wind-driven ember fire can be and of the important lessons we can learn to be better prepared for wildfire.
From this experience I came away with a painful reminder that we all need to do a better job at focusing on fuels near our homes (e.g. combustible wood mulches used in landscaping, lawn furniture, leaf accumulations, dry landscape plants, etc.), especially in the 5 feet immediately adjacent to our homes. While the Tubbs Fire originated in grassy area in Calistoga it easily picked up embers from the burning vegetation which were moved by the 40-70 mph winds and created spot fires ahead of the flaming front. In short time these embers were blasted into homes via attic or soffit vents (critical to let moisture out of a building) or they ignited combustible materials close to buildings; these types of exposures are the primary way the Tubbs Fire started to consume homes. Eventually the Tubbs Fire moved to the more densely populated areas of the Fountain Grove subdivision in Santa Rosa and with each new home that was ignited a new source of embers were created. The embers that came from the burning buildings included 2 x 4s, chunks of wood the size of a frisbee, and other materials. These materials were blasted over Highway 101 on to homes and businesses in the urban center of Santa Rosa- a place most thought could not be impacted by wildfire. The winds persisted till mid-morning on October 9th providing considerable time for an ember to find a weakness in the home. All of us hope we never have a fire like this again, but as history shows us, California's most damaging fires typically occur in the September and October and are often wind-driven.
For many years UC has worked in educating homeowners about fire preparedness in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). These fires have resulted in the largest number of structure losses to date in California and we all need tools to better understand how to learn from these experiences. I greatly appreciate IGIS's willingness to help me collect some critical data in a time sensitive manner.
- Author: Shane Feirer
IGIS is in the news for the development and release of the Wild Pig Damage App! The app was recently higlighted by Julia Mitric, Food And Sustainability Reporter with Capital Public Radio.
Description of the App: The UC ANR's University of California Cooperative Extension and Informatics and GIS Program have developed a GIS-based mobile application for Apple and Android devices that will collect wild pig damage on range, forest and agricultural lands over time. By taking at least three locations the app will map acreage and geographic location of wild pig damage reported by the users. Cell service at the site is not required to collect data.
The data will be uploaded to a UC ANR server for use by the UC advisors and the specialist that created the app so they may analyze and report data at a county, region, state, national or international level. Private property and user identities are blocked from the general public to maintain the privacy of the users. Public land managers can also use the app. The first efforts are focused on California.
Potential users include ranchers, farmers, forest land owners, managers, and agency personnel such as UCCE Advisors, NRCS, Wildlife Services, etc. In addition, citizen scientists could also report damage on public lands or on private lands if they have access permission by the land owner.
The screen shots below illustrate how the app appears on an Android device