Two to three years ago, the Los Angeles county experienced it's largest record of wildfires during the months of August and September. The wildfires spread over an estimated 160,000 acres through these months and for the entire US, these months had an average of 5,535 fires and burnt about 378,523 acres (1). "Los Angeles' Station fire, which began on August 26th, burned an estimated 160,577 acres, making it the tenth largest fire in California history since 1933. The fire was also among the most destructive of 2009 — destroying 209 structures, including 89 homes, and claiming the lives of two fire fighters."(1) To have personally seen these fires first hand before hitting the news was an forgettable experience.
With this massive and rapid spread of wildfires, firefighters in the city of Los Angeles were immediately called out to help sedate and control the madness. For this project, I wanted to present some different elements that would be affected by the extreme amounts of debris exposed into the atmosphere. With all the ash in the atmosphere, the nature winds carry out the debris. The map above, I illustrated the debris distribution in the area of Los Angeles. This information was obtained in a government website cite as reference (2). To even get the proper map to showcase in the map above, the data had to be collected at the USGS Seamless site to show the correct elevations and county outline of the map (4).
From then on, I collected information from varies sites to show the different elements that are affected by the debris distribution. These elements include river and waterways, and popular areas. First off, I thought the river and waterways would be extremely contaminated if there are long amounts of debris in the atmosphere. From this, I thought it would be a good idea to display in my map the river and waterways in the Los Angeles county. From this information, it seems like these areas were really affected based on the amount of river and waterways in Los Angeles as soon on the map. The river and waterways information was collect at the UCLA GIS website(3).
Besides the river and waterways, I also thought that popular areas in the Los Angeles county should be illustrated in the map as well. According to the data collected in the US census and world population count, the city of Los Angeles in the top 15 heavily populated cities in the world (6). Knowing this, I wanted to collect information of the different popular spots there are in LA. As it is illustrated on the map, a lot of popular areas in LA is close to the areas close to the fire and debris flow(2).
In conclusion, there are important aspects and precautions to take when there is a wildfire outbreak because many people in the city will be affected. Also, rivers and waterways can be heavily affected in city also if a wildfire were to happen again. Precautions needs to be taken by the government and city officials and individuals themselves to help be protected from wildfires because wildfires are natural to these kinds of areas and you never know what kind of brush fire will start.
References:
(1)NCDC: * National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) *. Web. 07 June 2011. .
(2)"Los Angeles County GIS Data Portal." Http://egis3.lacounty.gov. 2006. Web. 26 May 2011. .
(5)"Los Angeles County Enterprise GIS." Http://egis3.lacounty.gov. Web. 26 May 2011.
(6)"City Populations 2013 World City Population, Biggest Largest Cities in the World - Worldatlas.com." World Atlas including Geography Facts, Maps, Flags - Worldatlas.com. Web. 09 June 2011. .
(I am not able to cite sources 3 and 4 correctly because they are private cites and I can't access them. But I used them at the lab)
For the Conformal Projections, it really distorts the map and the way the globe actually looks. Both the Mercator Projection and the Gall Stereograph Projections make Africa look smaller than it actually is. In reality, Africa is a lot bigger than Greenland, but in these projections, Africa looks almost the same size. These maps are convenient if you are trying to figure out the exact Longitude and Latitude of lines because in other projections, lines are curved. Conformal Projections preserves angles locally. 
