FIRE LOOKOUT TOWER

Presented by Shaynee Gulliford

PROJECT Locate the best site for a lookout tower for

firefighters to spot wildfires in the Loess Hills near the town of Blair Nebraska

Follow specific criteria that were provides by Washington county and the city of Blair

Perform a site selection analysis using ERSI AcrGIS (Geographical Information System) Software

PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS Within 500 feet of a road for easy access At least 1300 feet in elevation for the best

visibility of the surrounding terrain On a slope of less than five degrees to

minimize construction costs and maximize gourd stability

With in ¼ mile of dry pasture land since these areas are the most susceptible to wildfires

Site should be with in 4 miles of Blair Nebraska

Select 3 possible sites to build one tower

First Criteria- within 500 feet of a road for easy access Add the road layer

shape file Used

GEOPROCESSING Buffer tool to buffer 500 feet around selected roads

Criteria-at least 1300 feet in elevation for the best visibility of the surrounding terrain

Add the Blair Nebraska 10-m DEM (map showing elevation of the Loess Hills area)

Used CUSTOMIZE tool extensions to check on the Spatial Analyst Extension, then check Spatial Analyst toolbar

To select certain elevations, go to Raster calculations in ARC toolbox, insert expression [blair_ne]>=396 (meters=1300 feet), evaluate

Created new layer named elevation

Criteria- fire tower look out on a slope less than five degrees to minimize construction costs and maximize ground stability

Create slope layer using the Blair Nebraska 10-m DEM and Spatial Analyst, surface analysis, slope

Change new grid to be names slope

Use the Raster calculator to select cells that are less than 5 degrees using the expression:[slope]< 5, click start

• Create raster layer that meets both slope and elevation criteria using raster calculator- expression: [elev1300]*[slope]

• Final step, Spatial analyst tools, surface, Hill shade to create hill shade from the Blair Nebraska file, name new grid “hill shade”

Criteria- within ¼ mile of dry pasture land

Add land use layer of Washington country

In metadata text file, go to Entity and Attribute Information, find attribute “LU-CODE”, used land use code 1-28 on the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources web page

To select only dry pasture land from land use layer, create a query, Use Data, Export data to create a new shape file named pasture

• Next use Geoprocessing, buffer to create buffers around dry pastures using the given criteria, within ¼ mile of dry pastures, dissolve type changes to all, new shape file name is “pasture buffer”

Final criteria- within 4 miles of Blair Nebraska

In arctoolbox, use conversion tools, from raster, raster to polygon, to change raster layer from criteria 2 and 3(elevation and slope), to a vector layer, new layer name is

“intersect_poly”

• To select polygons that are suitable, create a query, Use Data, Export Data, to export suitable polygons for the look out tower to be placed, name file sites1

• Then in Arctoolbox use analysis, overlay, intersect to intersect road buffer and pasture buffer, new file name is sites2

After completing steps for sites 1 and 2, use Arctoolbox, analysis, overlay, intersect to intersect sites1 and sites2, the new layer name will be final sites

• Final step was to make a radius 4 miles around Blair Nebraska for the sites to be located in

• Geoprocessing, buffer and change distance to 4 miles from center of own

Added images to the map of the Blair area from www.dnr.ne.gov/databank/fsa03.html

FINAL MAP