Exploratory Map Animation for Post-Event Analysis of Wildfire Protective Action Recommendations

This paper examines the timing of protective action recommendations in relationship to the distance of wildfire to a threatened community using exploratory map animation. The 2003 Southern California Wildfires were animated to assist in understanding the complex interaction between fire progression and warnings to threatened communities. Exploratory map animation provides a useful post-event analysis platform for hypothesis generation. A new method is introduced for interpolating the distance from a wildfire to a threatened community using geospatial data. The results are used to examine incident commander decision-making in regards to the estimated time of arrival of a wildfire at a community. The exploratory map animations were successful in generating an intriguing hypothesis concerning the timing of protective action recommendations and the proportional distance of a wildfire to a threatened community. Following a wildfire, emergency responders can use exploratory map animation as a training tool to evaluate protective action recommendations of wildfires.