Station Fire Map

This map shows the affected areas of the California Station Fire only a few days after it first started. The image was mapped by the USDA Forest Service MODIS Active Fire Mapping System. The enormous smoke cloud that the fire emitted was visible from almost any spot in the Southern California area. This map helps visualize just how far the fire reached and what was causing the enormous smoke cloud that was visible from space.

McDonald's Across America

This map shows all of the 13,000 McDonald's fast food restaurants in the Continental United States. This map was created by Stephen Von Worley at weathersealed.com. Each light represents one McDonald's restaurant and the glowing area shows the client base each one reaches. According to the map, the farthest point anyone in the United States could be away from a McDonald's is 150 miles. Another interesting aspect of the map is you can clearly see the outline of the United States, you can clearly identify where the major cities are, and even identify heavily travelled roads, because of the density of the lights.

Orange County Surf Spots

This map represents some of the highest rated surf spots along the Orange County coastline. This surf-spot map comes from thesurfingsite.com which is a site devoted to spreading the knowledge of surfing to beginners. The convenience of this map is the fact that it shows where the surf-spots are located. The names of surf spots are rarely the actual beach name, so a map that shows the surf-spot's names is really convenient for the surf enthusiast.