On August 6th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, USGS will host an informational webinar to provide an overview of the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) 3D National Topography Model (3DNTM) Data Collaboration Announcement (DCA) for the 3D Hydrography Program | U.S. Geological Survey (3DEP) and the 3D Hydrography Program (3DHP).
For more info and to register, click here.
Fireworks! Fireworks! Fireworks!
Yes, it is almost July 4th again and our famous SoCal Fireworks app has been updated for 2025.
For this year the City of Orange has joined the other cities that allow fireworks. Sadly the City of Carson and City of Inglewood decided to ban fireworks for this year.
Use the app to view cities that allow the sale and discharge of fireworks in LA, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. Included are days and times when fireworks will be sold and when you can light them up, as well as links to city websites and telephone numbers. Data was collected from municipal codes, websites, and/or contacting each city. Data provided as is. Some cities are allowing sales now. Check it out and be safe!
Is LA really under siege with all these riots? This article and map shows it really is not.
Los Angeles is a sprawling metropolitan area that’s home to nearly 13 million people. Unlike a lot of big cities, it doesn’t have one main population center. Angelenos are much more spread out than New Yorkers or Chicagoans. Most of the protests this week have taken place in a radius of just a few blocks of downtown L.A., where City Hall, LAPD headquarters and a federal detention center are clustered together.
The Library of Congress will have a webinar tomorrow on Maps of World War II. Register here: https://loc.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/8717489749718/WN_-3eNMamQR1y7mybLbU1d5Q#/registration
Reference librarians will give a brief overview of maps and other cartographic items from World War II that can be found in the Geography and Map collections at the Library of Congress. This session will highlight items made by American forces, as well as captured maps made by the Axis powers. The breadth and content of these items and how they came to the Geography and Map Division will be discussed. Participants will learn how to search for and access them online or in person. The focus of the session will be on maps and online resources available to all patrons any time or place in the world, but attendees will also learn how to prepare for a future trip to the reading room. After the presentation, staff look forward to answering additional questions from attendees.
Cal Fire has released new Fire Hazard Severity Zone Maps. The maps for most of Southern California, as well as a large portion of rural eastern California, including Inyo and Mono counties, were released today as part of Cal Fire’s Phase 4 of Local Responsibility Area data. The first three phases encompassed the rest of the state, including Ventura County in Phase 3. Click below to check it out.
Some of you might not be happy since your property might have been moved into the high risk areas which might make your insurance go up … or be dropped! Visit the comparison viewer here.
The 2025 LA Geospatial Summit will be this Friday, February 28th, at the USC Hotel. For more info and to register, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/spatial/los-angeles-geospatial-summit-2025/ .
Check out this fire app built with ArcGIS Online, Experience Builder, and publicly available data.
It combines CAL FIRE’s Damage Inspection (DINS) layers, Maxar imagery from NOAA & OpenAerialMap, dynamic charts that summarize DINS totals, historic structures in the Palisades area from Historic Places LA, and a link in the damage points pop-up to pre-fire Google Street View imagery.
More from the builder of the app here.
Check out this 3D map of the fires in LA County by CAL FIRE. You can click on one of the fires listed at the bottom of the map to zoom to it. Fire perimeters, evacuation area status, wind speeds, camera locations, and live tracking of fire fighting aircraft are shown as well.
An alternate 3D Incident Map (Beta) by CAL FIRE can be viewed here: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents.html .
I will be teaching a California Rare Book School (CalRBS) course on the History of Cartography August 11th to the 15th at UCLA.
https://www.calrbs.org/history-of-cartography-2025/
This course is designed to provide a general overview of the history of mapping in the western world as well as the use of cartographic resources in modern day teaching and research.
Topics will include an introduction to maps (projections, scale, visualization of information), the history of map printing; the evolution of European mapping; the role of maps as cultural and social objects; the wide variety and type of maps produced; reference materials and cartobibliographies, and the role of museums and libraries as stewards of the content.
Course participants will interact with physical examples from archives and special collections, as well as examine maps in the larger historical context through a class visit to a highly regarded cultural institution. This class will also explore and critically examine digital cartographic repositories from around the world and the role they can play in education and research.
This course provides credit for the following certificates:
Please do join me for all the mappy fun!
Ian Fowler
Curator of Maps, History, and Government Information
New York Public Library
The 2024 ESRI User Conference Technical Sessions are online for you to view! Check them out.
SoCalGIS.org 