Handheld Layers
Planners with the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission are using a Global Positioning System, commonly known as GPS, to assist in inventorying and mapping structures in the advance notification zone of Grand Bay and Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuges.
Tina Sanchez, environmental services director for the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission, had what she describes as a “visionary moment” while participating in a disaster management conference in Charleston, S.C.
During a demonstration of the latest GPS and PocketPC products, Sanchez, whose graduate research at the University of South Alabama included using GPS to assist in surveying beach and dune profiles, soon realized that the combination could help tackle wildland fire vulnerabilities that had become apparent through SARPC's participation in a local advisory council.
At the time of the July 2001 conference, Julie Shiyou-Woodard, a principal planner on SARPC staff, recently had organized the Wildland Urban Interface Advisory Council of Southwest Alabama.
Composed of volunteer fire departments, Alabama Forestry Commission staff, local governments and emergency response agencies, the council was created to identify and address the region's vulnerabilities to wildfires, such as:
- Limited access into areas in wildland areas,
- Lack of responder training and
- Homeowners not knowing methods to reduce their wildfire risk.
With input from the council, Sanchez and Shiyou-Woodard began discussing methods of identifying and prioritizing the needs of the high-risk areas while searching for resources to address those needs. Shiyou-Woodard then contacted the Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, to obtain guidance on applying for a fire management grant.
Before the application could be completed, the two traveled to the Southeastern Disaster Resistance Communities Summit in Charleston to receive an award for their work on disaster mitigation in FEMA's Project Impact. It was at this conference that the two saw the GPS and Arcpad demonstration which led to this project.
The vision included creating a computerized database of structures near
Sanchez knew that for this project to be effective, the latest in GPS and portable PC technology would need to be incorporated into the data-collection effort, as the GPS technology would allow for the database to be transferred easily and quickly into a GIS project. Once in a GIS project, additional data layers, including aerial photography, could be added to provide wildfire responders with highly detailed maps.
After returning from Charleston, Sanchez and Shiyou-Woodard began constructing the application for the grant that would finance the initiative. Funding was sought for the identification of high-risk structures, for the education initiative for high-risk structure owners, and training of area volunteer fire departments in wildfire response methods.
Eight months later, SARPC received an award letter approving the grant. The Trimble Geoexplorer CE GPS and Portable PC unit and ArcPad Application Builder were selected as the hardware and software to implement the project. The Geoexplorer CE unit, designed as a rugged and water-resistant field GPS unit, has a Windows-based operating system that allows for the easy transfer of data. Other advantages of the lightweight and portable unit include its lengthy rechargeable battery life.
The next requirement was a wildfire risk assessment tool that could easily rate structures in terms of their vulnerabilities. Andrew Martin, a principal planner with SARPC, designed a risk assessment tool that could be incorporated into the ArcPad application.
Input from published Firewise standards and wildfire experts led to the creation of a point-based assessment that examined the three topics considered to be the most critical: fuel and slope, construction characteristics, and emergency access and operations. The assessment, made up exclusively of yes or no questions, was designed to provide up to 100 points for the structures with the lowest wildfire risk.
Fuel and slope. Five categories of fuel types factored with the four slope categories were the basis for scoring the 33.34 potential points. Structures located in areas with mowed grass and with less than 5% or a mild slope received the maximum points. Structures located in areas with dense fuels taller than six feet high on extreme slopes of 26% or more were given only 0.83 points.
Emergency access and operations criteria accounted for 33.33 points. The emergency access portion allocated 19.60 points for areas with adequate bridge and road capacity and with visible, non-flammable signage. The remaining 13.73 points in this section were provided to structures located in areas close to staffed fire stations, static water sources and buried utilities.
Construction characteristics provided up to 33.33 points. Structures constructed with nonflammable roofing and siding that were properly maintained were assigned 8.00 assessment points. A structure with a defensible space greater than 30 feet and with adequate driveway access would receive 18.34 points. The remaining 6.99 points were provided to structures separated by 30 feet or more that were close to fire hydrants.
Jeff Butler, an undergraduate computer science major working part time in SARPC's GIS Department, developed the ArcPad application that allowed the wildfire assessment to be placed on the GPS Pocket PC unit. The program was designed to store latitude and longitude, answers to assessment questions, and user-entered digital camera identification number in separate data columns. The assessment data would be entered on the Pocket PC touch screen via stylus.
The assessment began in the Grand Bay advance notification zone, the area located within one mile of the refuge's border. Structures located in this area would likely be the first damaged by a wildfire escaping the refuge boundaries. U.S. Fish and Wildlife wildfire personnel are responsible for notifying and responding into this area during a wildfire incident.
A two-person team consisting of a driver and a computer operator conducted the assessment of the 234 structures located in the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge advance notification zone. The stored assessments then were transferred to SARPC's computer network via a standard USB port. The job of quality assurance and control was completed by examining the data to ensure that assessment questions were coded correctly, that structures received the correct number of points and that structure locations were placed correctly.
Color-coding the structures by assessment scores allowed the areas with a large concentration of risk to be easily identified. Identifying the areas with the largest number of high-risk structures will assist in efficient use of educational resources. High-risk property owners can be targeted for risk reduction, and firefighters will have information that will aid in wildfire response.
The difficulties of budgeting time and resources to solve problems increase when dealing with new and unfamiliar technologies.
For example, the time needed to learn and implement a new system was underestimated. In addition, the team member responsible for developing the ArcPad application graduated and moved out of the area before it was finished.
Organizations considering this technology should ensure that enough time is set aside to learn its use. Furthermore, they should ensure that computer programming skills needed to create, edit and fine-tune the input software are accessible through out the project.
Another application problem resulted from the entry of a camera's photo ID numbers by hand. Typos and other mistakes associated with user-entered data created problems organizing and linking the assessment database. Methods to automatically link the assessment data and the photos would be of great value.
The process of conducting field work offered several lessons. In terms of equipment, the low cost of backup digital camera storage media and batteries justifies their purchase. Having these items available while in the field will reduce the chances of losing a day of work when the camera's memory card is full or its charge runs out.
Working in the field presented another problem when trying to answer the access and operations questions. It's difficult to analyze questions concerning access to a structure while parked in front of it. Questions concerning access issues should be answered while looking at a map or aerial photography.
Finally, a GPS system requires signals from at least three satellites. Occasionally, the satellite signal would be lost. While it's unknown what caused the signal to vanish, suspected causes included the signal being weakened by the vehicle's roof and glass. An external antenna for the GPS unit could improve access to the signal to alleviate or eliminate this problem.
Despite challenges, the information gathered from this project will be valuable to the educational outreach specialists assisting homeowners in reducing their potential fire losses. The value of GPS and Pocket PC technology was critical to increasing the amount of information collected and in decreasing the time needed to collect, process and analyze that information.
Andrew Martin is a principal planner for the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission, where he focuses on disaster mitigation and environmental issues. He holds a master of public administration degree and has years of experience in emergency management and EMS.
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