Lab 1 – Incident Mapping using ICS Symbols

An hour ago you were called in as emergency help for incident mapping on the Maloney
Creek fire in the Craig Mountain Wildlife Management Area, Idaho. The 24 hr flue has
incapacitated the permanent GIS staff in the incident mapping GIS trailer north of the
fire. According to members of the fire fighting staff there is only one person within the
next 300 miles that has any GIS and mapping experience at all – this person is YOU!

The incident commander expects a briefing map of the Craig Mountain area (in .jpg
format) in the WebCT assignment drop box (http://www.webct.uidaho.edu) as soon as
possible. Whatever you do will be better than nothing – even a simple fire perimeter map
would give the impression that the GIS trailer is still intact and functioning. The
following instructions were left for you by the last member of the GIS crew, before she
left due to exhaustion and high fevers:

12:30 pm, August 18

To ‘the emergency GIS person’,

Use the ICS Style Sheet in ArcGIS to make briefing map for the area. All map data is in
UTM projection, zone 11, map units meters, however some data is in the datum NAD27
and some in NAD83. As long as you define the projection with the correct datum
ArcMap will place the data correctly on the map.

1. Start a new ArcMap project. Go to the following web site

(http://inside.uidaho.edu/geodata/USGS/DRG.htm) and download the two
1:100000 scale topomaps (click on Image Map to select) for the fire area:
OROFINO and GRANGEVILLE. Unzip the files using Winzip. Add the
downloaded topo-maps to the ArcMap project (drg100k_45116e1_usgs.tif and
drg100k_46116a1_usgs.tif)

2. To remove the white line

between the two topo maps,
double click on the white color
box for each map and select
‘Color is Null’ under the
Properties tab.
OK.
You can also change other
colors in the map, maybe make
the green less bright.
3. Add the fire perimeter from August 18 (c:\nr406\Maloney\ Perimeter-
August18_Dissolve.shp). Double-click on the color box under Perimeter-
August18_Dissolve.shp to activate the Symbology dialog. Display the fire
perimeter as a thick read outline (no fill color).

4. Add as many of the following features as possible to the map:

Point locations according to the list below, UTM, zone 11, NAD27

Location Easting Northing

Fire start location 528519 5099826
Camp 521015 5112426
Incident base 516433 5111297
Water source 520515 5112014
Water source 509475 5089148
Water source 507263 5092276
Water source 520727 5083269
Division break A-B 529073 5098403
Division break B-C 530672 5105760
Division break C-D 516437 5102881
Division break D-A 510678 5085527
Helibase 538952 5106986
Helispot 525111 5106420

The point data is located in the file gps_points_aug18_00.txt in the

Maloney folder. Add this text file. Right-click on the file (in ArcMap) and
select Display XY Data….

Make sure that

Easting is the x-field
and Northing is the
y-field.

Click Edit to Select

the Projected
Coordinate System
UTM, zone 11,
datum NAD27.
5. Display the different point features with different symbols. Double-
click on gps-points-august18_00.txt Event to activate the Symbology
dialog. Select Unique. Select Location for the Value Field. Click
AddAllValues. Each Location type (helispots, division breaks etc. will be
displayed in a different symbol – however these symbols are not very
informative. Note: You can use either the attribute Location or Pointtype
as the Value Field.

6. In this step you will add the ICS Symbol set and display the different
point features with an appropriate symbol.
a) Double-click on the point by ‘Camp’ in the table of contents.
b) Select More Symbols – then Add
c) Navigate to c:\NR406\Maloney\ICS-Styles and select ICS Fire
Mapping.style
 d) A new set of styles will be added to the selectable symbols. Select C for
Camp.
e) Similarly, select appropriate symbols for Helibase, Helispot, Fire Start,
Division breaks, etc.

7. GPS coordinates for the completed dozer fire line was just downloaded from the
Garmin units by the field crew, add DozerLineAugust18.shp to map. Change the
symbology of the line to the Completed Dozer Line symbol in the symbol set.

8. Zoom to the extent you want in your final map. Change to ‘Layout View’ by
selecting ‘Layout View’ in the View menu. Add a scalebar (in miles), a north arrow,
a title and a legend to the map. Hope you remember how to do this from the first
lesson in NR402 – or watch the Demo for this Lesson 1.

9. Save the layout as a .jpg file (with the Layout active, select File – Export Map and
save the file as a .jpg with 150 dpi resolution). Name the file Lesson1-‘your last
name’.jpg. Place the map in the Assignment Drop box in WebCT
(http://webct.uidaho.edu)