Know Your Zone

Preparing in advance for an evacuation can significantly speed up your response when the time comes. Being familiar with the steps to take and ready to act as soon as an evacuation warning or order is announced is crucial.  

In times of evacuation warnings and confirmed evacuations, authorities emphasize the importance of residents being familiar with their specific evacuation zone. These zones are designated with a combination of letters and numbers, with the initial letters representing the name of the geographic area and further divided by numbers into smaller zones. It’s recommended to familiarize yourself with your particular zone by checking your address at genasys Protect. 

Incident Information Center - InciWeb: 

A national, interagency all-risk incident information management system. The system was developed with two primary missions: 1. Provide the public a single source of incident related information, and 2. Provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community.

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Click on "Incident Table View." Type "Arizona" in the Search box, and it will provide you with the status of all fires in Arizona.  Alternatively, click on an incident shield on the map and then "Go to Incident". Updates are usually twice a day. Morning status is around 8 or 9. Evening status is 5 or later.  The table will reflect the fire type, numbers of acres consumed, and hours since the information was updated.

National Fire Situational Awareness - Intterra:  A Go-To site for the big picture, to include the cost of fighting fires. Click on "Fire Information" tab and scroll down to Current Fires. This will give you the number of fires in your state, the location, agency in command, acres, and containment percentage. Alternatively, click on a fire icon on the map. Explore the icons on the left of the map for more details.

AirNow is a national tracking application that's focused on air quality near a wildfire. Round, triangular, and square icons will display air quality at those specific locations and fire or satellite detection icons will provide minimal fire information. Key in your zip code and the dial will give you current air condition.  More detailed information can be obtained under the Fire tab during a wildfire.

ADEQ offers all types of information on environmental concerns.  Type in "wildfire" in their Search box and, if there are any significant wildfires, you will be provided with the current air status from them.

The AZ Wildfire Dashboard, provides, by Arizona county, the time discovered, acres burned, containment percentage, longitude/latitude, and other useful information.

The National Weather Service is the grand-daddy of national weather information. Additionally, weather warnings are posted and constantly updated. 

Go to FlightRadar24 to see where that overhead helicopter or red-belly bomber is going. In near-realtime, aircraft images are shown traversing the world. Click on one to gather more information on that particular flight and determine where that smoke actually is by finding the support aircraft as they circle the wildfire area.

#FireMappers strives to answer two basic questions: 1. Is there a fire near me? and 2. Where do I go for more information? Three organizations - The National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation, GISCorps, and CEDR Digital have come together to help address this problem. Simply click on the map's fire icon and learn.