Update, October 24: If this solution is a bit to tech-geeky for you, I've captured the map images and posted them here for the Witch Creek fire and here for the Harris fire. I will be updating them throughout the day.
San Diego State University has posted a fantastic Google-Earth based map of the wildfires in San Diego. Here's how to see it.
Start Google Earth (GE). You can download and install Google Earth here if you don't have it already.
Right click on this link and copy the link to your clipboard.
In GE, do file->open and paste the URL into the file name box. Don't worry if GE looks like it wants a file name instead of a URL.
This will bring up the overlays and map data. It's outstanding. SDSU is saying it will keep this updated. I don't know if this is a live map or if you'll have to restart GE or reload the kmz file from time to time. If someone can tell me in the comments, I'd appreciate it.
When I brought it up, the smoke overlay blotted out the street names. Over on the left hand side, deselect "MODIS." Apparently, MODIS is their smoke distribution model.
Rock on, SDSU.
Update: If you can't get GE to work for you, there is a Google Maps version here, but it's not as detailed. I didn't like it nearly as much as the GE version. Having said that, it's still a good place to go for current information.
Bloggers: We've long since removed our ads from this site and we're not doing this for money. However, if any of you want to throw us a link or two, we'd really appreciate it.
15 comments:
Awesome post. Thanks for both the Google Earth link from SDSU as well as the web-based version.
Thanks, Jay. Glad I could help.
Thank you for posting this - I have been looking high and low on the internet for a good up-to-date map of the SD fires, and this is awesome. :)
M in SD
No worries, anon. I'll be posting about our family adventure bringing supplies to the evacuees pretty soon. It was inspiring.
Awesome, thanks. I've mapped several friends homes and they are all in peril. Scary stuff...
Outstanding post...thanks so much for the help...
T in Chula Vista
Thanks! I posted a link to this on my blog.
Thanks, all! Please come on back from time to time to see what else is shaking here at the 'Post.
That one is great.
Here's another super one:
http://toae.org/?p=134
About 4 lines down there is a link to a KMZ file.
Apparently another SDSU site.
Looks good.
btw: MODIS is a satellite - it's called "moderate resolution", but takes pretty nice pictures of the earth, moisture, cloud cover, etc.
Your instructions don't work on my mac - I open Google Earth, and then click on file and open, but there is no place to type or past the link you mention - not sure what to do next.
anon, you can probably just click on the link itself. Since it points at a kmz file, your mac should open GE and load that file automatically.
I'll try that - I'm having the same problem - Mac isn't quite GoogleEarth compatible.
Does anyone know when actual satellite imagry of the burned areas will be available. I should would like to see if my house survived or not.
Sorry, worried, I can't help with that. I was just trying to provide a better operational picture than what I could find elsewhere. Those of us who worked on this throughout the fire promise to do better next time.
In the meantime, you have my prayers.
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