Here are some sources of information on the many wildfires burning in the Rocky Mtn. Region:
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Fontenelle Fire in Wyoming and High Park Fire near Fort Collins, Colorado:
I uploaded a short video on the Fontenelle fire (which has grown tremendously since it started) on WyomingView, social media sites and the Youtube channel. You can access the video at:
YouTube: http://youtu.be/S_oqTPzjOK0
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WyomingView/314286598583916
https://plus.google.com/b/114860802366070461656/
Please forward these links to anyone who might be interested in this.
Thanks!
– Ramesh
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Ramesh Sivanpillai
Associate Research Scientist
WyGISC & Dept. of Botany
University of Wyoming
Laramie, WY 82071
P: 1-307-766-2721
F: 1-307-766-2744
E: sivan@uwyo.edu
(Ramesh is also Vice President of the ASPRS Rocky Mountain Region)
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Colorado Wildfires:
Visit Mike Tuffly’s website at http://www.eriaconsultants.com and click on the link at the bottom of the page for a map showing all the fires burning in Colorado. Each fire icon is linked to a larger map of that specific fire.
Michael Tuffly, Principal
GISP, CF #4050, CSE, CMS #RS196
ERIA Consultants, LLC
165 South 32nd Street
Boulder, CO 80305 USA
Phone: 303-449-5146
Cell: 720-841-6188
Skype: michael.tuffly
Email: mtuffly@eriaconsultants.com
URL: http://www.eriaconsultants.com
(Mike is also Secretary of the ASPRS Rocky Mountain Region)
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Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs, CO:
I have created a way to view actual damage from the Waldo Canyon Fire by geo-referencing aerial images of the affected neighborhoods, adding the IR fire perimeters, and making a KMZ file that can be opened using Google Earth. You may view my initial attempt at Black Ice Geospatial <http://blackicegeospatial.com/> .
The advantage to using Google Earth with actual images is that you can use the “fly-to” search feature and enter an address, then zoom in and flash the layer on an off to see if the structure has been damaged.
This is far from perfect. It is not comprehensive because I have a limited number of images to work with. I obtained these from the DenverPost.com and I hope it is OK to use them. The images appear to be de-resolved to what Google Earth can provide, or perhaps it is the maximum that ArcGIS can output. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to improve the quality of the KMZ output, I would really appreciate it. It is actually the many people who have called me asking for some way to do this that will appreciate it the most – people are desperate to know if they have lost their homes, and as far as I know, no one has married these up-to-the-minute images with a means of searching the geo-location of actual property parcels. I would love to add the subdivision, neighborhood, parcel information, but El Paso County charges for them and I do not have the means to purchase the data. If anyone knows someone at the county or city who would provide data for this effort, please have them contact me or email the data to mark.newby@blackicegeospatial.com .
My heart goes out to these folks who have lost homes. I had to do something, and this is what I came up with to make it available to anyone with a computer. I do not think there is a GIS person out there who after receiving these calls like I did would not have figured out a way to deliver something these folks could use. It is what this GIS community is all about.
Mark Newby
Black Ice Geospatial
303-520-6017
(posted to GISCO listserve 06/28/2012)