MtBacheLomaPrietaPlus

Community Map Project

Explore our interactive Mt Bache Loma Prieta Plus Community Map

We are actively working on mapping key wildfire resources in our community to share with CAL FIRE, such as water sources, emergency vehicle turnarounds, and temporary refuge areas. Please contact me at winkleramy@gmail.com to participate in this project.

Select a topic below to learn more:

Status
Contribute
Workflow
Resources

Interactive Map Preview:

Status

One of our community goals in 2025 is to create a map of our community for emergency services, highlighting:

Water Sources
Emergency Vehicle Turn-Arounds
No Exit / No Turn-Around
Refuge Areas
Evacuation Routes

We are sharing this information with CAL FIRE to reference in case of a wildfire event. We currently have an interactive map of our community with helpful metadata associated with key features, such as water sources. For example, in the interactive map, click on a blue icon to see more information about a particular water source.

Be a Contributor!

We would like this map to be as representative of our community as possible! To share information about water sources, emergency vehicle turn-arounds, or other helpful resources on your property for CAL FIRE in case of a wildfire event, please contact to me at winkleramy@gmail.com.

For water sources, please include the following information:

Property Address
Type of water storage, e.g. 2x water tanks, 1x in-ground pool, 1x hydrant, 1x cistern
Capacity in gallons for each water source
Specific location in latitude and longitude to at least 5 decimal places for each water source. This can be tricky! One way to get this information is to open Google maps and drop a pin at the location of your water source.
Material composition, e.g. polyethylene tank, steel tank, cement pool
How water is collected, e.g. spring-fed, well on property, rain collection

For fire hydrants:

color of the hydrant,
flow rate,
hose outlet size

Some tips from CAL FIRE and the Fire Safe Council for water sources:

During the CZU Fire, a number of polyethylene tanks melted when the adjacent brush caught fire. For polyethylene tanks, the recommendation is the clear at least a 5’ zone, similar to the home ignition zone of your house.
The more water storage capacity, the better! 10,000 gallons or more per property is the current recommendation. CAL FIRE will put their hose directly into a water tank and use their own pump to pressurize the hose.
Fire hydrants should be tested annually by a professional. If your hydrant has been tested recently, it is more likely to be used! Among other things, the test checks for:
Debris, which may flow from the hydrant system and clog an attached fire hose. This is a big concern among firefighters! In many instances, firefighters forego using private hydrants to avoid possible damage to their hoses.
Flow Rate, which should match the color of the hydrant. If the hydrant hasn’t been tested recently, the rated flow cannot be trusted.

For emergency vehicle access, Fire Prevention Standard FPO-012 states that a minimum of 13’ 6” vertical clearance over a road or driveway is needed. Per the Santa Cruz County Health and Safety Code §7.92.503.2.1.1, areas within 10’ horizontal and 15’ vertical on each side of roads and driveways shall be cleared of flammable vegetation and other combustible growth. Single specimens of trees or cultivated ground cover such as green grass, ivy, succulents, or similar plants are exempt provided they do not form a means of readily transmitting fire at the discretion of the fire code official. Please keep these standards in mind when identifying or preparing for emergency vehicle access to your property.

Workflow

The current workflow leverages the open source software QGIS and assessor parcel data from Santa Cruz County’s GISWeb. Community participants share information about relevant features on their properties. The map coordinator (me) then marks the position of relevant features on the assessor parcel map within QGIS, enters any relevant metadata, and exports to html using the qgis2web plugin. The exported files are then pushed to the main branch of this repository and automatically published to GitHub Pages. This workflow with QGIS, qgis2web, and github follows this example.

Add or Edit Map Features

To edit, pull this repository or download the contents of the src folder. Using QGIS 3.40 or later, open the file MtBacheLomaPrietaPlus.qgz. Right click on the CommunityBoundary layer and select ‘Zoom to Layer’.

Identify relevant map features in the appropriate vector layer. Vector layers include WaterSources, EmergencyVehicleTurnArounds, etc. To confirm the latitude/longitude of point features, select the Vertex Tool, available in the Digitizing Toolbar at the top.

Vertex Tool

Export to Web

When ready to publish, navigate to the Web menu, qgis2web, Create web map.

Create web map

In the export window, select the following options:

Layers and Groups: Check Visible and Popups for all Layers. In popup fields, select ‘inline label - visible with data’ for include labels in the popup map data.

Export Settings

Appearance: Title ‘upper left’, Abstract ‘lower right’, Layers list ‘Expanded’ (creates legend at the top right), Template: ‘full-screen’ (adjusts map size to viewing screen)
Select OpenLayers radio button at the bottom and then click Export