Locating the Fire Stations of Urmia City Using GIS and AHP

Generating new civil facilities requires a careful study to find a convenient location for these facilities in different parts of a city. The first and main point in correct and appropriate allocation of civil facilities is selecting the optimum with respect to the different and sometimes opponent circumstances. This issue becomes significant when very important factors such as saving human Beings’ lives are to be considered. Therefore, optimum locating of fire station centers, considering the importance of the lives of the endangered people, is a fundamental issue. This matter becomes more outstanding when we regard the 56% increase of incidents occurred in Urmia in 2010. In this article the Network Analysis method and AHP model in GIS have been used to locate the fire stations. The results of Network Analysis according to the standard time (1 to 5 minutes) indicate that 49.2% of Urmia is not covered by fire stations at the moment. In order to compensate this shortcoming, according to the locating criteria of fire stations in the form of AHP model and the results of Network Analysis in GIS, four new stations were located and suggested. Moreover, the functional radius of the suggested stations together with the existing stations on the basis of the standard time of arriving the fire vehicles at the fire places, has been depicted in order to determine the coverage area of Urmia by these centers on the basis of Network Analysis, which, as a guideline for providing services, can be used by policy makers and civil managers of Urmia.