GeoTRIVIA December 2005

And the answers are . . .

1. The United States Census Bureau has population data for counties and metropolitan areas based on the 2000 Census. Below are lists of the 15 most populous counties and the 15 least populous counties.
   

   Largest Counties

   Rank	County	2000 Pop.
   1	Los Angeles Co., California	9,519,338
   2	Cook Co., Illinois	5,376,741
   3	Harris Co., Texas	3,400,578
   4	Maricopa Co., Arizona	3,072,149
   5	Orange Co., California	2,846,289
   6	San Diego Co., California	2,813,833
   7	Kings Co., New York	2,465,326
   8	Miami-Dade Co., Florida	2,253,362
   9	Queens Co., New York	2,229,379
   10	Dallas Co., Texas	2,218,899
   11	Wayne Co., Michigan	2,061,162
   12	King Co., Washington	1,737,034
   13	San Bernardino Co., California	1,709,434
   14	Santa Clara Co., California	1,682,585
   15	Broward Co., Florida	1,623,018

   
   California is the winner, with the greatest number of counties (5) in the top 15.

   Smallest Counties

   Rank	County	2000 Pop.
   1	Loving Co., Texas	67
   2	Kalawao Co., Hawaii	147
   3	King Co., Texas	356
   4	Kenedy Co., Texas	414
   5	Arthur Co., Nebraska	444
   6	Petroleum Co., Montana	493
   7	McPherson Co., Nebraska	533
   8	San Juan Co., Colorado	558
   9	Blaine Co., Nebraska	583
   10	Loup Co., Nebraska	712
   11	Thomas Co., Nebraska	729
   12	Borden Co., Texas	729
   13	Grant Co., Nebraska	747
   14	Slope Co., North Dakota	767
   15	Logan Co., Nebraska	774

   
   Nebraska has the distinction of having the greatest number of counties (7) in the bottom 15.




2. The nearest fire station isn't always the responding fire station. For example, the first responding fire company may come from outside the risk's own fire district because of an automatic-aid agreement between districts. Also, the nearest fire station may not meet minimum national standards for initiating a response to a structure fire or may not operate 24x7x365. LOCATION® is the only system with information on individual hydrants and other sources of water, responding fire stations, and automatic-aid agreements.



3. In a survey of 500 randomly selected fire chiefs and other officials conducted for ISO by the independent polling firm Opinion Research Corporation, 64 percent of the respondents said they've used ISO's PPC program to plan for, budget, and justify improvements in their communities' fire protection.

   




4. New York, New York (latitude of 40.71), lies at the same approximate latitude as Madrid, Spain (latitude of 40.42). Charleston, South Carolina (latitude of 32.78), lies at the same approximate latitude as Bermuda (32.33) — as the map below illustrates.

   The LOCATION® Latitude/Longitude Report gives you the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees for any risk address you enter. You can perform concentration analysis and analyze your exposures with that information.

   




5. FireLineTM did well in identifying hazard areas in the California wildfires of 2003. FireLine classified 97.5 percent of the geographic area burned in the fires as fuels. And the product identified 95.7 percent of the home and commercial properties affected by the fires as exposed to the wildfire hazard.

   The map below illustrates the high correlation between the actual burn areas in the San Bernardino County fires (inside the black lines) and areas classified in FireLine as fuels.