Gualala to Westport / A public-data study
Where does the coast's fire-station network reach? Explore estimated parcel coverage, then place a hypothetical station to see what it adds.
A planning screen, not a safety guarantee. Road access and station operations need verification. This is not an insurance or response-time assessment.
Follow the roads, not a radius
Combine USGS and OSM station locations with orange, locally added special cases, consolidating points within 50 m. Screen by the shortest directed road route to Highway 1 between Gualala and Westport. Include sites at five miles or less.
Follow connected OSM roads outward from each station. Respect mapped one-way directions. A road crossing on the map is not automatically a junction.
Screen by residential zoning and county improvement value. Retain mapped contacts within 30 m. Where access is missing, add the straight-line distance from the parcel boundary to the nearest highway-connected road. Dashed outlines identify this optimistic estimate.
Recalculate in your browser. Existing coverage stays green; only additional parcels turn purple with bold outlines. Bright yellow roads show the candidate's reach. Move the candidate to compare one location at a time.
A road beside a parcel is not necessarily a legal entrance. Reaching its boundary does not mean reaching its buildings. The model excludes explicitly private or restricted roads, tracks, conditional access and unverified barriers, but does not model turn restrictions, apparatus limits, bridge capacity, temporary closures or emergency exemptions.
Missing access for qualifying developed residential parcels is estimated with an uncapped straight-line connector, not a mapped driveway. Its length is included in baseline, candidate and selected-station distances. It can cross barriers and underestimate the actual trip to a home. County improvement value is a screening proxy, not market value or proof of a dwelling; low or missing assessments can omit homes.
The map focuses on dedicated residential zones, not a verified inventory of homes. Agricultural, timber and mixed-use zones can contain residences but are outside this focus. Missing or conflicting zoning is kept uncertain. The county zoning map does not cover incorporated-city zoning, including Fort Bragg and Point Arena. Where city zoning is missing, parcels remain faint outlines rather than being classified as non-residential.
Station records can be outdated, missing or duplicated. Staffing, equipment, seasonal operations, mutual aid and response times are not evaluated. Treat apparent gaps as questions to investigate with local departments, not as findings that a property lacks fire protection.
Orange stations are locally added special cases included in estimated coverage. A station's absence from these public inventories does not establish whether insurers recognize it or how it affects homeowners' premiums.
Open sources / Reproducible results
Source retrieval dates and checksums are recorded with every build.
All inventory points within five straight-line miles are checked by road. Locations that fail the road-distance test remain listed for review. A missing route is not proof of no access.
| Station | Selection | Road miles to Hwy 1 | Road snap gap |
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Roads: OpenStreetMap contributors / ODbL. Stations: USGS structures, hosted by Esri. Parcels: Mendocino County. Parcel counts combine source records by APN within a ten-mile search envelope of the study highway.