Mapping the Los Alamos Fire

Author: Tim Walsh
Organization: Marin County Fire Department

PO Box 518
Woodacre, CA 94973
USA

Phone: 415-499-4239
Fax: 415-499-4246
twalsh@marin.org

Prior to this assignment, the author has mapped fires from the buttes surrounding Chico to the deserts of Southern California. After several successful mapping missions last fire season, confidence was running high. The phone rang with a dispatch to New Mexico and the confidence ran out! How do we travel across the Nation without data, equipment, or basic geographic knowledge of an area? After 9 days averaging 20 hours each, numerous maps were created. Maps were used for operational briefings, fire behavior, and public information over the Internet. The final assignment was to create a FARSITE fire behavior model to predict fire behavior for another significant wind event. Once the model was created, computers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were used to run them.


Tim Walsh is a Fire Captain Specialist with the Marin County Fire Department located north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Captain Walsh has 16 years in the Fire Service. Prior to his employment with Marin County, he was employed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as a Battalion Chief. His current assignment is performing a wildland fire risk assessment within Marin County using GIS.