Wildfires in AZ Geoffrey Krassy GEOG 594A Prof Todd Bacastow The Question Are the occurrence rates andor severity of wildfires in southern Arizona affected by the frequency of smuggling operations which occur ID: 677500
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Slide1
Illegal Border Crossers andWildfires in AZ
Geoffrey Krassy
GEOG 594A
Prof
Todd BacastowSlide2
The Question…
Are the occurrence, rates and/or severity of wildfires in southern Arizona affected by the frequency
of
smuggling operations which occur.
Soldier Basin fire seen from Nogalas Intl Airport, AZ
(Images from KVOA.com)Slide3
The problem of wildfires
Illegal immigration and smuggling is an endemic problem along the US-Mexico border.
The
flow of contraband (both human and other) through the Tucson sector in Arizona varies dependent on numerous factors within the United States and
Mexico. The desert Southwest is also highly susceptible to brush and wildfires. It has been shown that some of these fires have been deliberately set in order to draw attention away from another portion sector.Slide4
Study area
Red outline is the study area. It is the lower half of the Office of Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector.Slide5
Datasets
Primary
CBP Apprehension Data
Group size, location and time
Aggregate by year (2009-2013)Clipped to study areaDatum: WGS84MODIS Thermal Anomalies & FiresAggregate by year
Datum: NAD1983
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS)
, National MTBS Burned Area Boundaries Dataset
Datum: NAD
1983
Background
CBP Administrative Borders
,
V10
BaseMap
– ESRI World
TopoSlide6
Software
Software
Version
Developer
Website
ArcGIS
10.2
ESRI
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgisSlide7
Pre-processing: ArcGIS
Optimized Hot Spot Analysis
Set for 50% Transparency
Set Symbology
GiBin
for 3 ClassesRed indicates 95% + confidence that the clustering is significant
ArcGIS
Repeat for each
data-set
GoT
o
Visual Comparison
CBP Apprehension DataSlide8
MODIS-Thermal Anomalies & Fire Overview
MTBS
(Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity)
OverviewSlide9
Apprehensions
Seems like a (mostly) random distribution.
Need something to find the trends.Slide10
Optimized Hot Spot Analysis
“Given
incident
points,
creates a map of statistically significant hot and cold spots using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. It evaluates the characteristics of the input feature class to produce optimal results.” (ArcGIS 10.2 Help)Analysis, in this case, is based on apprehended group size, in addition to geographic location.It identifies the “non-random” elements.Non-random implies a regular route.Note: these are the groups apprehended, not necessarily the ones who started fires.Slide11
Sample Results 2011Slide12
A closer look…Slide13
And closer….Slide14
Conclusions
Visual correlation performed for every fire noted from 2009-20012
Every notable fire within 25 NM of the border was within 1 NM of an Apprehension
HotSpot
.Considering that National Park Service claims 90% of wildfires are of human origin, and that the fire locations are functionally depopulated…It is likely that most of the wildfires in southern Arizona are caused by illegal border crossers.Slide15
Questions?