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Maps of San Diego Fires

posted by Satri on Tuesday October 23, @08:55AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the burning-down-the-house dept.
Web Mapping Forestry Maps
In a demonstration of how quickly maps can be put on the web, the official Google Lat Long blog informs us on the San Diego fires and its fire map from KPBS which provide useful information for people in the area. The Google Earth Blog show us how to overlay the smoke plumes in Google Earth using MODIS and GOES data, here's more and even a time animation which illustrates the spread of the fire. From the Lat Long blog: "[...] KPBS Online created a fire map that includes up-to-date news on the spread of the fire and shows the location of evacuated areas, Red Cross evacuation centers, and closed highways. They are also providing live radio coverage of the fire."

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KPBS's 2007 San Diego fires map was extremely useful and widely used to deliver/consume constantly updating news where location was very relevant, especially to locals. Is this a good way to deliver this kind of dynamic data (ie. news updates)? Or will the map go back to being the afterthought that's linked to or hiding in a tiny sidebar?
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