As we approach the twenty-first century, many fire departments throughout the world will be investigating and implementing geographic information system (GIS) technology to improve their operations. No comprehensive surveys have been made on the extent of GIS adoption among fire departments alone. However, experts will agree that there may be tens of thousands of organizations and municipalities that are presently involved with GIS to some extent (Huxhold and Levinsohn, 1995). Over a period of approximately eighteen months of part-time work, the City of Glendale, California, is just one among many fire departments that has cooperatively worked with its neighboring cities (Burbank and Pasadena) to produce an intercity GIS-based emergency response fire map book database. Under the support and consultation of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (Esri), the project's primary objective was to develop a work plan to successfully build a seamless quality controlled and cost-effective intercity fire map book database, where the source data were to be derived or converted from a series of ArcInfo-based cadastral and planimetric data layers.
The project's work plan included
The objectives of this paper are to provide the reader with brief history and background of the Glendale Fire Department; the details behind the project's database development approach, data organization, procedures definitions, and automation refinement; and a brief overview of fire management GIS applications the City of Glendale is considering for the future.
The City of Glendale, California, is the third largest city within Los Angeles County, California, with a population of 193,000. The City's geography includes a relatively flat downtown area with a mixture of high-rise office buildings, retail, commercial, light industrial, and moderate density residential occupancies. Approximately 30% of the City is mountainous, with the single-family residences built surrounding this area.
The Glendale Fire Department provides fire and life safety services for the City. This includes fire fighting, emergency medical, hazardous materials, fire prevention and life safety, emergency preparedness, and public education. The Department serves the community through nine fire stations and an environmental management center. Twelve fire companies work out of the nine stations with daily staffing of fifty emergency response personnel with a total staffing level of 197 employees.
The key component to emergency response and mitigation is the ability to route responding firefighters to the scene of an emergency. Traditionally, fire departments use an emergency response map book with street layouts, block numbers, and fire hydrant locations identified. The Glendale Fire Department also uses this approach and for the past fourteen years, the Department used a response map book that was completed using FIRESCOPE mapping data. Over the same time period, there have been numerous changes required to maintain the response map book current. As changes were periodically made, it became increasingly difficult to "manually" update the map book and the Department desired to substitute it with a computer generated map book product.
The City of Glendale's first steps in producing the new computer generated map book was to meet with the City's GIS Section and review the software, hardware, and data sets that were readily available to construct a fire map book GIS database. The City's GIS Section had earlier contracted Esri to provide on-site consulting and technical support to assist the City with the following:
Esri conducted a two-day user needs assessment meeting with the City of Glendale and cooperating fire departments of Burbank and Pasadena. The principal goals and objectives of the meetings were to
The Glendale Fire Department is a partner in the Verdugo Communications Center operation, which dispatches fire and paramedic companies to the cities of Burbank, Pasadena, and Glendale without regard to city borders. This arrangement makes it essential to share a common response map book layout, which became a priority in designing a tri-city map book grid system or index coverage.
The map book grid system was created through an AML routine that utilized the ARC GENERATE command to compute the full extent and page size of the map book index coverage. Before this grid system was created, the service area, scale, and page size of the map book was predefined to determine the total number of pages comprising the map book. For example, if the page size is predetermined at 8.5 inches x 14 inches and the scale at 1 inch = 400 feet (1:4,800), then the extent of each cell (or page) within the index coverage will cover a uniform area of 3,400 feet x 5,600 feet. Hence, defining the exact number of pages by directly relating the page size to the scale will predetermine a map book's size (number of pages required to cover service area), approximate weight (relative to paper weight selected), and ultimate ease of handling.
Once the page size, scale, and number of map book pages were determined, the cartographic components of the map book layout were addressed. Several map symbol elements, such as line and text colors, sizes, patterns, and fonts, were chosen, plotted, and reviewed prior to finalizing the page layout symbology. Of equal importance was the inclusion and organization of the line, text, and area entities, such as (1) a 400-foot data overlap surrounding each map page; (2) a "home" map page number with its associated and adjacent map page numbers; (3) a top and bottom map page line partition; and (4) a revision date. The purpose of having a 400-foot data overlap was to enhance the map book's continuity and interpretation while navigating from page to page. Second, to provide a quick and logical referencing method to adjacent map sheets based on a purely numeric system, the map page reference numbers (along the page borders) were sequentially organized in accord with the grid system or index coverage, with adjacent page numbers incrementing by a factor of one from left to right and incrementing by a factor of 100 from top to bottom. Third, having a top and bottom map page partition provided a quick reference to an address or region while interpreting a given map page. Last, the revision date text was included for tracking future database updates. Refer to Figure 2: Map Page Layout.
Analyzing the City's current fire map book was conducive to determining the type of data features and symbology to preserve, exclude, or revise in the new map book product.
The following entities or features were chosen as part of the new map book product and database:
Within a LIBRARY of 189 tiles (3,000 feet x 2,000 feet):
The cadastral data layer was utilized to create dual line streets with relative street sizes. First, a seamless cadastral block layer was created through an AML routine that merged (MAPJOIN) all the parcel/lot tiles and next isolated (RESELECT) all right-of-way (ROW) lines to create city blocks without internal parcel/lot lines. These ROW boundaries served as the primary land base for the database, housing the fire hydrants and block numbers within its borders. For areas outside Glendale's City limits, existing Burbank ROW boundaries were merged and edgematched. In some instances, Thomas Bros. street centerline data were BUFFERED to create suitable ROW boundaries for areas where digital ROW boundaries were not available, such as within the City of Pasadena. In addition to the ROW boundaries captured, the cadastral layer also contained the required street name and block number annotation features.
The transportation data layer was utilized to create specific street ways and access roads in and around the City of Glendale. Street ways and access roads not covered within the transportation layer were "heads-up" digitized, on-screen, using the digital orthophoto as a backdrop or control base.
Footprints of prominent buildings, such as hospitals and schools, were introduced and annotated (with a building name or label) from the building footprints data layer. Golf, tennis, and ball field complexes were also included as part of the database and entered on-screen, using the digital orthophoto as a backdrop, when the building footprints data layer lacked these features.
Fire hydrants of varying valve and main sizes and symbols of unique locations, such as cisterns, tanks, and helipads, were input as point features from 100-scale hard-copy source maps. These point features were uniformly positioned by offsetting their x,y coordinates from ROW boundaries. Gate features were input as line features bearing handles or nodes crossing the ROW boundaries.
Flood control channels and street medians were captured from the cadastral layer and maintained as a polygon layer residing outside the newly created ROW blocks and point features layer. These features were later shaded in color to accent their presence throughout the map book pages.
Additional features, such as streams, contour lines, and power lines, were input to include the presence of other pertinent geographic features to acknowledge during emergency response and preparedness.
Of vital importance was the creation and organization of the street address table that indexed the entire map book pages. This index table was created by overlaying Thomas Bros. street centerline data with the map index grid to allocate a "home" map page number onto each street centerline record containing street name and address range information. The resulting index was subsequently loaded into a spreadsheet program to, first, perform a quality control review and apply record updates and, second, to create the final street index table alphabetically sorted by street name and numerically sorted by address range.
Refer to Figure 4: AML-Based Menu Interface.
An AML-based menu interface was written to facilitate and streamline the data capture process and ultimately support the update and maintenance of the database. This application was designed to
Comprehensive quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) AML routines were written and executed to validate the integrity of the database. These routines included a thorough review of each field within each database record, as it compared to the project's predefined data dictionary. Tabular updates were applied and routines rerun until all database files were deemed error free on a series of output QC reports.
Spatial data were visually checked for complete and accurate capture by symbolizing and plotting each map page within the database. Line and point features' errors were flagged and updated using the AML-based menu interface, and new and revised map page products were regenerated as necessary.
Once the database was deemed error free and all map pages plotted, each geographic element within the database was "ground truthed" or field checked. The field checks performed included the following list of requirements:
Check for the following:
Good organization and management through all phases of database development and automation significantly contributed to the enhancement, progress, and successful implementation of the work plan and completion of the final database product. On a daily basis, all database development tasks were carefully monitored and recorded via a spreadsheet, thus tracking and reporting a current project status for analysis. Conversion anomalies (i.e., poor data registration) were documented and resolved as encountered and the menu interface was periodically updated and enhanced to maximize the efficiency of production.
Under Esri's support, the framework and development of the database was performed and processed by an off-duty firefighter. It was an absolute necessity to have at least one firefighter trained to input, process, and maintain the map book database in order to flavor the database product with the essential or critical geographic features important to firefighters. Hence, the AML-based menu interface was specifically designed to be user-friendly and intended for a user with no computer or ArcInfo training or knowledge. Within a period of two days, the firefighter at the City of Glendale was trained and supported in the use of the menu interface tools provided.
The production of the emergency response map book was the first step in utilizing the Esri software, ArcInfo and ArcView, to produce emergency response, preplanning, and analytical data mapping capabilities. There are many other applications for utilizing the map book data that the Glendale Fire Department is presently planning and pursuing. Future uses for the ArcInfo database include using ArcView to
William E. Huxhold and Allan G. Levinsohn. 1995. Managing Geographic Information System Projects.
