Maps have something about them that confounds, inspires, intrigues, and humbles us. I've spoken to many people about maps, why the attraction, avoidance, or confusion exists. Many answers from the simple to the complex were given, but the fascination remained. Those who can't read maps admire those who can. Those who can read maps seem always to be in search of the ultimate map. Maybe it's in our DNA. Maybe it's in the minds of the imaginative person who longs to travel to other places, always knowing where home is. Perhaps the fascination begins by chance in youth and lays hold our wonderment for a lifetime.
Young children carefully push crayons around a piece of paper to map the universe of their neighborhood. In my youth, we found abundant treasures in our backyards. Some of these treasures we had previously discovered, some we buried or even re-buried. Our maps consisted well known landmarks, such as "my house", "Larry's house", the "sewer drain", the "alley", and the "third telephone pole from the street."
From these clues, we would begin our search with specific directions. The "buried treasure" (a box of toy soldiers, a discarded household item, or other object of fascination) could be found by counting off an exact number of steps in certain direction provided by a toy compass from a landmark that was found by a solving clue. The steps were always measured by the mapmaker's strides or a heel-to-toe count. Pretty accurate, too, as long as we had the same size shoe or didn't exaggerate our strides.
As we grew older, our maps encompassed larger areas. From our neighborhood, we wanted to place our world in larger and larger universes like our towns, our counties, and states. I remember my father showing me how he used the well-known Sanborn Maps in fire inspections. Here was another level that I have come to appreciate - a detailed map of a city block with multiple levels of information about each building and elements of infrastructure encoded by color, texture or lines.
When I joined the fire department as a live-in college student, I was aware that drivers were studying streets and maps and hydrant locations for the entire city. Not my problem. I had to pass trig and physics while trying to comprehend the progress of western civilization. But, of all the subjects in college, I most remember a short course in map reading in the ROTC curriculum. My fascination with maps found new energy, and I got a much better compass!
Then I became an apparatus driver on the fire department and realized what a monumental task map memorization was. It was just about all I could do to remember the sequence of steps to get the pump engaged and how to determine the needed water pressure at the end of the hose. But, of course, all these skills became second nature over time.
When I moved to Washington DC to work at the US Fire Administration/FEMA, I discovered a real treasure only a few blocks from the office - a retreat from work - a map store! I browsed through maps of the ancient world, modern world, the fictional world of middle earth, even the moon! And only a few blocks away from that - the mecca of the National Geographic Society! As the manager of the fire protection master planning program, I used real maps for assessment of fire departments and created fictional ones for training. Maps! I had been addicted all along!
"Spatial recognition" may not have been a term in common usage then, but that's what I found that I had. As fire chief, I found management issues that required my map skills and imagination to solve. For the last three decades, I've taught college level courses in fire protection master planning, beginning with paper maps and acetate overlays to introduce fire fighters and officers to the value of maps and the particularly the importance of analyzing the data beneath their surface.
Through this series of blogs, I hope to share with you ideas for discussion, current activities in mapping, and much more. But above all, I hope that together we can help expand an appreciation and understanding in others of why maps in our world are so important for emergency management right now and in our future.
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Young children carefully push crayons around a piece of paper to map the universe of their neighborhood. In my youth, we found abundant treasures in our backyards. Some of these treasures we had previously discovered, some we buried or even re-buried. Our maps consisted well known landmarks, such as "my house", "Larry's house", the "sewer drain", the "alley", and the "third telephone pole from the street."
From these clues, we would begin our search with specific directions. The "buried treasure" (a box of toy soldiers, a discarded household item, or other object of fascination) could be found by counting off an exact number of steps in certain direction provided by a toy compass from a landmark that was found by a solving clue. The steps were always measured by the mapmaker's strides or a heel-to-toe count. Pretty accurate, too, as long as we had the same size shoe or didn't exaggerate our strides.
As we grew older, our maps encompassed larger areas. From our neighborhood, we wanted to place our world in larger and larger universes like our towns, our counties, and states. I remember my father showing me how he used the well-known Sanborn Maps in fire inspections. Here was another level that I have come to appreciate - a detailed map of a city block with multiple levels of information about each building and elements of infrastructure encoded by color, texture or lines.
When I joined the fire department as a live-in college student, I was aware that drivers were studying streets and maps and hydrant locations for the entire city. Not my problem. I had to pass trig and physics while trying to comprehend the progress of western civilization. But, of all the subjects in college, I most remember a short course in map reading in the ROTC curriculum. My fascination with maps found new energy, and I got a much better compass!
Then I became an apparatus driver on the fire department and realized what a monumental task map memorization was. It was just about all I could do to remember the sequence of steps to get the pump engaged and how to determine the needed water pressure at the end of the hose. But, of course, all these skills became second nature over time.
When I moved to Washington DC to work at the US Fire Administration/FEMA, I discovered a real treasure only a few blocks from the office - a retreat from work - a map store! I browsed through maps of the ancient world, modern world, the fictional world of middle earth, even the moon! And only a few blocks away from that - the mecca of the National Geographic Society! As the manager of the fire protection master planning program, I used real maps for assessment of fire departments and created fictional ones for training. Maps! I had been addicted all along!
"Spatial recognition" may not have been a term in common usage then, but that's what I found that I had. As fire chief, I found management issues that required my map skills and imagination to solve. For the last three decades, I've taught college level courses in fire protection master planning, beginning with paper maps and acetate overlays to introduce fire fighters and officers to the value of maps and the particularly the importance of analyzing the data beneath their surface.
Through this series of blogs, I hope to share with you ideas for discussion, current activities in mapping, and much more. But above all, I hope that together we can help expand an appreciation and understanding in others of why maps in our world are so important for emergency management right now and in our future.
