U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey LANDFIRE Paul Bourget SGT, Inc., contractor to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center Sioux Falls, South Dakota Work performed under USGS contract G10PD00044

LANDFIRE  Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools  A shared program between the wildland fire management programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, U.S. Department of the Interior and The Nature Conservancy  Produces consistent, comprehensive, geospatial data and databases that describe vegetation, wildland fuel, and fire regimes across the United States and insular areas

LANDFIRE Mission  To provide agency leaders and managers with a common "all-lands" data set of vegetation and wildland fire/fuels information for strategic fire and resource management planning and analysis

LANDFIRE History  Evolved from increased concern about the number, severity, and size of wildland fires  In 2000, the President directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to recommend how best to respond to severe wildland fires  Congress directed development of the National Fire Plan (Preceded LANDFIRE)

LANDFIRE History  In 2001, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported,  "Federal land management agencies do not have adequate data for making informed decisions and measuring the agencies' progress in reducing fuels.”  In 2002, GAO reported,  "On the basis of our review, LANDFIRE is the only proposed research project so far that appears capable of producing consistent national inventory data for improving the prioritization of fuel projects and communities." (GAO )

LANDFIRE History  LANDFIRE started with a prototype in 2002 and was officially chartered in 2004 by WFLC (Wildland Fire Leadership Council)

LANDFIRE Data Products 20+ data layers describing…...  Reference  Disturbance  Vegetation  Fuel  Fire Regime  Topography

LANDFIRE Data

LANDFIRE Uses

Vegetation  Vegetation was mapped using predictive landscape models based on extensive field- referenced data, satellite imagery and biophysical gradient layers using classification and regression trees

EVT (Existing Vegetation Type)  Represents 3 dominant lifeforms (shrub, herb and tree) currently present at a given site

EVT (Existing Vegetation Type)

EVC (Existing Vegetation Cover)  The Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC) layer represents the vertically projected percent cover of the live canopy layer for the dominant lifeform

EVC (Existing Vegetation Cover)

EVH (Existing Vegetation Height)  The Existing Vegetation Height (EVH) layer represents the average height for the dominant lifeform

EVH (Existing Vegetation Height)

Fuel  The Fuel Loading Model (FLM) surface fuel classification system characterizes wildland surface fuel  FLMs contain representative loading for each fuel component (e.g., woody and non-woody) for typical vegetation classification systems

40 Scott & Burgan Fire Behavior Models  This model represents distinct distributions of fuel loading found among surface fuel components (live and dead), size classes, and fuel types

40 Scott & Burgan Fire Behavior Models

Fire Regime  Historical fire regimes, intervals, and vegetation conditions are mapped  The Fire Regime Groups (FRG) were intended to characterize the presumed historical fire regimes within landscapes based on interactions between vegetation dynamics, fire spread, fire effects, and spatial context

Fire Regime Groups

Disturbance  Disturbance products are produced for each year to help inform updates to LANDFIRE data to reflect change on the landscape caused by management activities and natural disturbance

Vegetation Disturbance

Annual Disturbance 2007 Leaf On Image

Annual Disturbance 2008 Leaf On Image

Annual Disturbance

Applications (Appalachian Trail)  Address identified natural resource priorities and improve resource management decisions  Assess historical and current habitat conditions and forecast trends by coupling TOPS data with habitat modeling

Utilized EVT

Utilized EVC

Utilized EVH

LANDFIRE- WHAM (Web Hosted Application Map)  

LANDFIRE QUESTIONS???

References Yeqiao Wang; Nemani, R.; Dieffenbach, F.; Stolte, K.; Holcomb, G.; Robinson, M.; Reese, C.C.; McNiff, M.; Duhaime, R.; Tierney, G.; Mitche, B.; August, P.; Paton, P.; LaBash, C., "Development of a decision support system for monitoring, reporting and forecasting ecological conditions of the appalachian trail," Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2010 IEEE International, vol., no., pp.2095,2098, July 2010