The undertaking of creating a fire map took determination and patience. Raster spatial analysis is very interesting but requires immense attention to detail. The tutorial was very helpful in learning these processes and giving a me a base to try them with my own data. The process of finding the correct data was an adventure of its own. On the FRAP website there were a plethora of shapefiles that were alike and could easily trick you. This lab entailed an understanding and knowledge of the reclassifying of layers, analysis masking, using the raster calculator and more to create the station fire hazard map.
This lab really accentuated the unique differences between the manipulation of raster data and that of vector data. These two methods are distinct and require the user to think differently about each one. The biggest problem I encountered was reclassifying the slope of the DEM. Originally the shapefile had too many classes and could not be used in the raster calculation. This took patience to look back through the tutorial and learn the proper way to reclassify the data.
Although some of the raster spatial analysis techniques were difficult, overall they gave me a better understanding of how valuable they can be in GIS. This lab showed the importance that GIS can have when attempting to mitigate fire hazards and other natural disasters. GIS might be a computer program, but the data is real and the calculated fire hazard is real too. GIS can save lives if used properly and fully understood. This lab moved me closer to understanding the ins and outs of raster data manipulation as well as the mitigation analysis of hazards.
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