Application of a Portable GPS/desktop Mapping System for Fire Management Support

Download or read book Application of a Portable GPS/desktop Mapping System for Fire Management Support written by Delio Tortosa and published by Sault Ste Marie, Ont. : Great Lakes Forestry Centre. This book was released on 1996 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes a project conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a user-friendly, portable, low-cost global positioning system (GPS) receiver, as well as a notebook-based desktop mapping system, to facilitate rapid updating, inventory, and analysis of forest fires on a near real-time basis. Field trials of the GPS/desktop mapping system consisted of using aerial GPS to determine fire perimeter, to locate hot spots and lightning strikes, and to identify values at risk. Ground GPS was used to survey logging roads, values at risk, and prescribed burn perimeters, and to access certain locations using helicopter-borne GPS. Traditional mapping methods were then compared with the GPS/desktop mapping system. Operational testing of the GPS/desktop system was completed in 1993 by a fire crew in the Sault Ste. Marie district of Ontario.