Click on one of the following to jump to that section. Hit the Back button
to return here.
Normally new items are identified with an asterisk * but this 2006 update was
so massive that it didn’t make sense.
A. Introduction:
B. National Web Links with General Fire
Information:
C. Regional Web Links:
D. Forest or Local Sites:
E. Individual Fire Sites and information:
Individual Fire Maps
F. Satellite Images of Smoke and Fire and other
fire maps:
G. Printing hints for maps and other large files:
H. Editing Instructions (to use this page as a
template for your personal version):
I. Web Site Statistics:
A. Introduction:
This site has two primary purposes. I use it as a "launching pad" to
see the daily forest fire and smoke situation; and also as a means to describe
the fire situation to friends and relatives. Emphasis is on sites of interest
to those in Custer and Lemhi Counties and the Frank Church River of No Return
Wilderness in Idaho. Note: many maps are displayed as .GIF or .JPG images
and in MS Internet Explorer they will usually initially display at a reduced
size. Look for the box with arrows at the lower right of the image and click
this to enlarge the image.
The order of the links is from the general to the specific.
Caution when you visit a site for the second time, you may not be seeing the latest copy. If the information appears out of date, you should click on the "REFRESH" Button of your browser. In addition, most maps and other graphic files take a long time to load. If you open the link in a "new window" you can continue to "surf" or read the current page while the page with the graphics is opening. In Internet Explorer rest the cursor on the link and right Click the mouse and select "Open in New Window". I also use this method in many "Frames" pages to "get out of the frame".
C. Regional Web Links:
US fire responsibility is broken out into Geographic Area Coordination
Centers. The National Center is Boise and is home to the above national
"nifc" links. Refer to http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/
for a map of the GACC's. Our area of interest will be the Eastern Great Basin
(for Southern Idaho) and the Northern Rockies (for Montana and Northern Idaho, essentially north of the Salmon River.):
D. Forest or Local Sites:
Much of the information that I need is obtained from the above sites. However,
the individual forest sites often have additional information and are often the
only source of information for small fires.
E. Individual Fire Sites and Information, or
maps:
Previously some of the fire teams had their own web sites. These were only
active while that team was on the fire. Currently I know of no pages like this.
I’m sure they have been replaced by the INCIWEB system.
Individual Fire Maps in addition to the above sites you can produce fire maps as follows:
1. Click
the Wildfire Mapping Link at the Geospatial
Multi-Agency Coordination site or go directly to http://geomac.usgs.gov/viewer/viewer.htm.
Make sure a new window opens and then WAIT for a US Map to load that
shows "Active" Large fires as green triangles. It takes awhile. Make
sure the “Zoom In” menu selection is “lit up” at the bottom of the map. Now
go to the "Jump To Fire" box and select the desired fire, or alternatively,
Click your mouse slightly above and to the left of the desired location and
drag the mouse below and to the right of the desired area, release the mouse.
In either case, wait for a larger scale map (covers a smaller area) to load.
Initially the following values will be checked as “Visible”: Current Fires,
Current Fire Perimeters, States, and Shaded Relief. Current fires will be
checked as “Active”. As you Zoom in, the following will also be shown and I
suggest that you check them as “Visible”: MODIS Thermal Satellite, HMS
Thermal Satellite, All 2006 Fires (Optional), Past 2006 MODIS, Cities &
Towns, Road Numbers, Roads & Interstates, Counties, and Water Bodies.
There are some others that are optional, but I suggest that you don’t check
Land Ownership because it clutters the map. After checking these additional
values, you need to click the “Refresh Map” option. The MODIS and HMS
selections are important because they will allow the map to display burning or
burned area. These will show as red, orange or black spots or areas with a
cross hatch pattern. Not all fires have their actual perimeters plotted, so
these patterns will display the approximate perimeter. In addition, it’s very
common to find Red or Orange spots that have no name associated with them. In
most cases these are new fires that are not yet named or isolated fires that
are part of “complex”. Red is recent burning, orange is for the previous 12
hours burning, and black is for older burns. Click on the "Help" link
for definitions. Unfortunately these burn patterns won't display, once you
zoom in past a certain point. If the MODIS option is not listed (and
checked as a "Visible Layer") they won't show. If they don’t show,
select the “Zoom Out” option at the bottom of the map and click your mouse once
at the center of your area of interest. Unfortunately you may want to see a
little more detail (for example some low standard roads and trails won’t
display until you are zoomed in beyond the point where the burned areas show.
Thus try and remember where the burn area is based on the shaded relief and
then zoom in some more. I often zoom in and out several times. However note
that if you zoom in too much the map will appear out of focus.
Another technique is to zoom in as much as you can to still see the
MODIS burn patterns and yet see good shaded relief and then “Pan” the map
around. Do this by selecting “Pan” at the bottom of the map and then
clicking on one of the arrows at one of the sides, top, or bottom of the map. I
often find new fires this way that later show up as named fires.
2. The
following Large Fire Incidents site is easier than the above but doesn't
have the "zoom in" option as above, so one won't see as much local
detail. Go to: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/
and hover your mouse over the numbered red dots until you see the name
of the fire that you want, or look up the number of your fire on the list at
the bottom of the map. Then click the red button on the map for your
desired fire and wait for a small window to display some basic fire
information. Note that Forest Fires under 100 acres are not listed. At the
bottom of the small window click on the “General fire location” link. Your previous
window will be replaced with a General Fire Location Map for your fire of
interest. Your file will be located near the center of this map. Any other
nearby fires will also be shown. Select the “More imagery for this fire” link
at the bottom. Additional imagery may or may not be available but your fire’s
Latitude and Longitude should be listed. You can copy and paste this data into
the Topozone site below to produce a topographical map.
3. A
TOPZONE TOPOGRAPHIC MAP of the fire area can be displayed as follows: Go
one of the Geographic Area Coordination Center's Detailed Situation Report (or
other source) and get the Latitude & Longitude of a fire. Then go to
the "View Maps"
link at the top of: http://www.topozone.com/
and, in the upper left corner, select "Deg/min/sec" if your
values are in Degrees, Minutes, & Seconds, or "Decimal degrees"
if in that format. Enter the values for your fire. Note that west longitude
(ours) must be entered as a negative number, but only use a negative for
the degrees, not the minutes and seconds. You'll see a red cross "Target
Symbol" near the center of the map, which will be the location you
entered. The default display will be a "Small" landscape display
about 7" x 9". Use your browser's "Full Screen" option for
a better view. You can see a larger map without changing the scale by selecting
"Medium" or "Large". This will not change the map detail
however. Depending on the terrain, you may need to use a fairly small
"1:100,000" or 1:200,000 scale. Pick a larger scale 1:50,000 or
1:25,000 to see more detail. The largest scale is the "1:25,000"
scale, which is essentially the same as the standard 7.5-minute USGS Topo Map.
4. A small-scale small size general location map can be obtained at the following site using instructions similar to the above Topozone site: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/latlong.adp.
Note also that the following link http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/activefiremaps.php is to a map that has links to smaller scale maps covering a large area such as the entire Eastern Great Basin. Fires are identified.
F. Satellite Images of Smoke and Fire and other
fire maps:
1. The "Visible" Satellite Image will show the smoke from
large fires if the cloud cover is not too heavy. I was able to locate
several fires before there was any public information on them. Either the Missoula, Boise, or Pocatello 1KM "Visible" Image will cover our area. If you
are more interested in Northern Idaho or Glacier Park, use Missoula. For better
coverage of the Snake River Plain, use the Boise or Pocatello Images. Check out
more than one. Sometimes one will be clearer than another. You'll need a state
roadmap with county boundaries to help interpret these. Click on: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/?wfo=mso
and ensure that the “1km Visible” box is selected. Then choose either Missoula, Boise, or Pocatello. Once the window loads, select the Animation button and wait
for the 8 images to load. You can determine the approximate location of a smoke
plume using the state and country boundaries. Idaho and Montana state maps with
the county boundaries highlighted will help.
The date and time displayed on the images are Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) or the date and time at Greenwich England. Subtract 6 hours to get our local Mountain Daylight Time. Note that images after 18:00 (06:00 PM) or 00:00 UTC will show the next days date. Images much after 09:00 PM or 03:00 UTC will be too dark to show anything. You can still retrieve images after 09:00 PM because there is a lag in publishing the image. The GOES Visible Loop can often be retrieved well after 10:00 PM although the last image may not be readable. Check out the link to “Tutorials” for more information about these images.
In addition you might want to select the Radar Imagery from the menu at the left of the screen at the above site. Then select either Composite or Base Reflectivity “Loop”. I think I was able to identify a new fire on one of these loops once.
1a. The following "Intellicast" Visible Image "Loop" for the "Salmon National Forest" is not as good as the Intellicast stationary image because one cannot add county boundaries or other landmarks. http://www.intellicast.com/IcastPage/LoadPage.aspx?loc=usidpk67&seg=LocalWeather&prodgrp=SatelliteImagery&product=VisibleSatelliteLoop - Intellicast Image "Loop" for "Salmon National Forest".
2. The following link is to a very small scale map and a description of the NOAA Fire Hazard Mapping System: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/hms.html There is a link to a viewer that can be manipulated similarly to the GeoMac Fire Mapping program. Read the instructions and use the GeoMac viewer before using this and you shouldn’t have problems. You can go directly to this viewer at: http://www.firedetect.noaa.gov/viewer.htm and zoom in to see “Detected Smoke Plumes and Hot Spots”. Be sure and make the county boundaries “Visible”.
3. Fire Imagery:
Go to: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/imagery.php
and select a recent date with imagery. Normally you’ll be looking for “Idaho – West Montana”. I found the “False Color” imagery to be the easiest to
use. I could see that many of the burned areas were reddish and many times
smoke had a blueish cast that was slightly different than adjoining clouds. I
found it easiest to look for Flathead Lake and then scroll down to our area.
4. Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR's) on Sectional Aeronautical
Charts, and Text Pages:
Go to: http://tfr.faa.gov/tfr2/list.jsp
and select a state and click on Go for a list of most TFR’s. Click on
any “NOTAM” number for more details and a small size – small scale map and a
link to the full text of the Notice to Airmen. When you read the text, in most
cases the fire name is listed. There is also a link to a portion of the Sectional
Aeronautical Chart, that covers this fire. Note that you may find
restrictions for fires that you have no information on. Most likely for fires
in the wilderness that are mostly being "watched".
5. NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery (Northwest):
http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Fires/US_Northwest/
The Operational Significant Event Imagery team produces high-resolution,
detailed imagery of significant environmental events which are visible in
remotely-sensed data available at the NOAA Science Center in Suitland,
Maryland.
Sometimes the images produced by the team show fires in the Northwest, often in
Idaho and Western Montana. Select one of the "S" (Standard) Images
for a recent date and read the caption on top to see if it's worth loading.
They have smaller "P" (Preview) Images, but the print is so small
that it's easier to just load the standard version.
6. US Forest Service Region 4
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Tyros Satellite Images:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/rsgis_fire/index.html
Previously the above link had some good imagery. However the last seems to be
for last year. I’ll leave the link and the following instructions here in case
they re-activate the site. The above link is to a page where you select the
current month. This leads to a page with links to several types of images
for each day of the month. Each day there will be at least one
"Visible" or Band 1 Image, and at least one "Infra Red" or
Band 3 Image. At least through the 1st half of July, for most days, there were
"Cumulative Burn Maps for all "Western United States".
These maps show current fire as red and previously burned area as black. Not
all fires are listed. I expect that if a fire was not actively burning when the
satellite went over, that fire wouldn't show on the map.
The average user will probably find the Cumulative Burn Maps and the InfraRed
Image the most helpful.
G. Printing hints for maps and other large files:
If you know that you'll want to print a copy of one of the maps or larger
images, it's faster to save the file to your disk and print it later. In MS
Explorer, rest your cursor on the link to the desired file and right click and
select "Save Target As". You can click on the file later and read it
with your browse or other default program for that type of file. I have a $15
Photoworks Plus V2.31 from Seattle Filmworks. It works better for printing maps
than MS Explorer or MS Photo Editor. I use the "Poster Mode" to
distribute the map over several pages.
H. Editing Instructions (to use this page as a
template for your personal version):
You can save this file and edit it to reflect your personal needs. To save this
file, make sure that it's saved as an HTML file with an ".htm" or
".html" extension (suffix). You can then double click on the file
name and your web browser will launch. You can also launch your browser and
then open this file (Using File, Open, Browse, etc.). Click on any of the above
links to go to that site. If not already connected your web browser will open
and will dial your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Once filed, this can be edited by most modern word processors. For example: if you have MS Office 97, then within MS Internet Explorer Version 5, you can select "File" and "Edit with Microsoft Word for Windows 97". Other Browsers and other word processors will vary as to commands. Note that you cannot line up or space words with the space bar or with tabs in an Internet document. You can insert a "Nonbreaking Space" as was done here, or you can use Tables to accomplish this. Save the document periodically and then go back to the Browser version and hit the Refresh Button to see your changes.
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Web Location |
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Last revised on web: 1/ |
08/13/2006 01:05 AM |
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Previously revised on web: |
08/19/2003 10:45 AM |
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Home Page Location |
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Contact: |
Email is: ckeene41-b4 followed by an @ and then yahoo.com |
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