Wildfire Population Exposure NIFC Active Perimeters + AI Analysis
-- All Fires
-- Large Fires (≥10K ac)
-- Not Contained
-- Personnel
Live
Jeff Franzen

Wildfire Population Exposure

Real-time wildfire intelligence with AI analysis — Jeff Franzen, 2026

This is a prototype. It is not a finished product. It exists to show what is possible when you combine the ArcGIS JavaScript SDK with AI — and to show that the gap between concept and working tool is now measured in minutes, not months.

What This Is

This tool demonstrates how the ArcGIS JavaScript SDK combined with a large language model (Claude AI) can give disaster response officers real-time situational awareness without requiring GIS expertise.

A disaster officer can ask in plain language — "Show me fires larger than 50,000 acres" or "Generate a situation report for the Ashby Fire" — and the system responds instantly, querying live data and updating the map.

This entire tool was built in minutes using AI. Every visual, every feature, every data connection — generated through conversation. And if anything doesn't work the way you need it to, you describe the change and it's done. No filing a ticket. No waiting for a developer. No going back to Experience Builder and asking someone to reconfigure a widget.

Capabilities

Answer Questions
Ask about any fire, region, or condition in plain language. AI responds with live data.
Filter the Map
"Show only fires over 10,000 acres" — AI applies the filter to the live layer.
Generate Briefings
Instant situation reports formatted for operational leadership.
Click-to-Inspect
Click any perimeter for incident details + county population from Census ACS.

Data Sources

NIFC National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC/IRWIN) — real-time wildfire perimeters. Updated continuously. All current incidents in the WFIGS system.
Census U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2022 — county-level population for each fire's point of origin county. Used to estimate population at risk.
AI Claude (Anthropic) — interprets natural language, queries live fire data, generates briefings, and controls map filters. The AI sees only aggregated public data — no PII.

How the AI Works

The AI does not guess or hallucinate. Every response is grounded in the live NIFC data loaded into this session. It receives a real-time summary of all active fires before answering your question.

When you ask it to filter the map, it outputs a structured SQL expression that this application applies directly to the ArcGIS FeatureLayer.

Part of the AI + ArcGIS SDK Vision series — jbf.com

Filter active
Containment
0% — Active
1–50%
51–99%
100% Contained