Abstract

Animating Predictive Fire and Flood Models for Disaster Preparedness
Track: Disaster and Emergency Management
Authors: Harry Johnson, Kurt Baron

Wildfires and floods are disaster events that have a time component. The destructive front moves through both time and space. Various computer models have been developed to predict scenarios of these movements through both dimensions. Communicating the model output to emergency managers, decision-makers, and the general public can be difficult. Animating the model output provides a way for people to visualize and conceptualize the scenario without special training. This project uses the output from fire and flood model ArcGIS extensions and ArcGIS Engine based programs in small time steps to illustrate scenario events as smooth "movie-like animations. With this technique, emergency managers and decision-makers will obtain a general conceptualization of how an event may progress across space and time. Hopefully, this may assist in preparing for future events in terms of allocation and positioning of emergency response resources.