This document describes the evolution of Manitoba Hydro's fire proximity awareness system using geospatial data and FME. It summarizes how fire data was initially pulled from shapefiles then points to improve legibility. Weather and infrastructure data were also incorporated. FME was used to process the data, calculate proximity of fires to infrastructure, and track crew locations over time in response to fires. The system provides near real-time awareness of fire and weather conditions to help monitor risks to Manitoba Hydro assets and operations.

1. Fire Proximity Awareness
Larry Wiebe, Manitoba Hydro
Geospatial Data Services, GIS Data Specialist
April 11, 2013

2. Background

3. Evolution of Fire Data
 Pull Fire.SHP (poly) from MB Fire Program
 Used HTTPFetcher to pull down ZIP daily and
overwrite previous days data

4. Fire – Initial Map

5. Evolution of Fire Data
 Issues with volume and legibility of data
 Used InsidePointExtractor to pull a point within
polygon to create event theme and filtered out
extinguished fires

6. Fire – Point Representation

7. Evolution of Fire Data
 Move to KML source
– added unclassified
potential fires and
eliminated file
handling
 KML processing
significantly more
complicated due to
data issues. Had to
perform geometry
cleaning and XML
parsing

8. Manitoba Hydro Infrastructure
 Defined a set of critical electric/gas infrastructure
 Transmission
 Sub-Transmission
 Stations
 Distribution
 Communications
 Construction Corridor
 Used AttributeCreator and LineJoiner to summarize
features to how we needed them for the map

9. Evolution of Fire Data
 Added proximity for each fire within 30km of
Hydro infrastructure using NeighborFinder
 Create closest distance attribute to infrastructure
type for Provincial view

10. Fire – Proximity at MB Level

11. Evolution of Fire Data
 Create line to each of closest critical
infrastructure types

12. Fire – Proximity at Fire Level

13. Evolution of Fire Data
 Added storage of each fire change based on its
review date, status or size changes
 Each time a Fire KML is read, it is compared with
the latest data and new records are created if data
has changed
 Will be used to track fire progression in 2013 fire
season

14. Near Real Time Weather
 KML source read every 15 minutes, wind and
temperature of greatest importance for fires
 Helps user determine the potential risk based on
heat (dryness) and wind strength and direction
 Colour indicates temperature, arrow shows
direction, while arrow size indicated wind speed
 Issues with processing included:
 Lots of string manipulation for final output
 Attribute manipulation for final output
 Duplicates in data needed to be weeded out

15. Weather Workbench

16. Weather on Map

17. Supporting Fire Data
 MODIS Hot Spots
 WMS Service merged into Portal
 Shows past 24 and 48 hour hot spots
 Environment Canada Weather Radar
 Shows current precipitation and severe weather
 Administrative Boundaries and Cadastral Fabric
for Land Reference
 RCMP and Bulk Fuel locations for Emergencies
 Several base maps including imagery

18. Supporting Data

19. Field Verification
 MB Hydro has Satellite Tracking devices for Crew
Safety
 Can route a Crew (helicopter) to a high risk fire
where verification/status required
 Web service – refreshed every 5 minutes
 Automated with Python startup script
 History of device movement stored
 Emergency Status can be flagged
 Automated – bad data handled

20. Crew Location – FME Key Tasks
 Queries Web Service every 5 minutes
 Write a time stamp to an attribute file when
complete
 Merges 2 query results into one dataset
 Use Last written time stamp as start for new web
service query
 Add new data only
 Lots of date manipulation
 Spatial filter takes bad positions and repositions in
case of emergency situation

21. FME Workbench with Python

22. Crew Location

23. Crew History – FME Key Tasks
 Runs after Points gathered every 5 minutes
 SpatialFilter only uses data in Manitoba
 Assembles points into lines based on UTC
date/time sequence using PointConnector
 LengthCalculator assigns Length attribute
 StatisticsCalculator assign UTC start and end times

24. FME Workbench – Crew History

25. Crew History by Day

26. Futures
 Full History – so fire progression can be tracked
 FME Server – better automation and notification
 Plume Modeling
 Mobile
 Handle other Emergencies
 Flooding
 Severe Storms
 Lightning

27. Thank You!
 Questions?
 For more information:
 Larry Wiebe, lawiebe@hydro.mb.ca
 Geospatial Data Services
 Manitoba Hydro