Mapping Fires & Closures
One of the challenges with responding to a disaster like the forest fires that hit the West Coast in the summers of 2021 and 2022 is to understand how information connects. You might hear from a recreation agency that they have closed their lands, from a county that a closure area has been established, and see maps of fire perimeters, but it is hard to put these pieces together.
To help our community navigate the ongoing crisis, Northwest Portal by Washington Hometown updates our recreation maps and apps to show the information people need. This includes showing designated fire closure areas (boundaries) as well as closures of specific areas and facilities, such as in 2021 when WDNR closed all of its lands in Eastern Washington, while the USFS, the National Parks Service, Washington State Parks, and WDFW closed specific areas and facilities while limiting access to others. These closures were added to our data and were reflected on all of our recreation maps and apps. We work hard to update the data as conditions change, sometimes doing updates on a daily basis during fast moving events.
Detailed Information to help you get where you want to go.
In addition to updating our recreation maps and apps to show the current status, during emergency situations we produce printable maps to help people visualize conditions. We license these maps under a creative commons license—anyone can use them without restriction. We just ask that you credit us and send us a link to any articles or posts that use our maps.
Our Maps
Everyone—recreation users, recreation managers, and those who like breathable air—are enjoying the summer and hoping that this year will remain cool and wet without major fires. If you want to see how the fire season developed last year, here are some of the maps that we produced to show closures and fires in Washington.