Data collected and managed by Forest Service programs is available in a map service and two downloadable file formats – in a shape file and an ESRI file geodatabase.
Metadata is available that describes the content, source, and currency of the data.
You can filter the list by the topic categories in the menu at the left to help you find information you are interested in.
You can view the feature classes in a single dataset by clicking on the name of the parent dataset at the bottom of the abstract.
Shapefile Limitation Warning:
The Enterprise Data Warehouse Team has identified certain technical limitations of shapefiles which
make them not suitable for all datasets within this clearinghouse. Due to file size limits as well as attribute name
length and field length restrictions leading to inevitable data loss, the EDW Team is unable to support
shapefile exports for larger datasets. There are other methods to accessing this data in addition to the Esri File
Geodatabase (FGDB) including the map service or the Geospatial Data Discovery Tool.
Requests for KML/KMZ output
The Enterprise Data Warehouse Team tested exporting out to KML/KMZ files as a deliverable and due to the complexity and size of the datasets this has been unsuccessful.
To obtain a KML file for any EDW dataset, go to the Geospatial Data Discovery Tool and search for the dataset. An option to download to KML is available from that website.
If you have questions, contact: SM.FS.data@usda.gov.
HazFuelTrt_LN (Hazardous Fuel Treatments - Line) represents activities of hazardous fuel treatment reduction. All accomplishments toward the unified hazardous fuels reduction target must meet the following definition: "Vegetative manipulation designed to create and maintain resilient and sustainable landscapes, including burning, mechanical treatments, and/or other methods that reduce the quantity or change the arrangement of living or dead fuel so that the intensity, severity, or effects of wildland fire are reduced within acceptable ecological parameters and consistent with land management plan objectives, or activities that maintain desired fuel conditions. These conditions should be measurable or predictable using fire behavior prediction models or fire effects models." The data came from the Forest Service's Natural Resource Manager (NRM) Forest Activity Tracking System (FACTS), which is the agency standard for managing information about activities related to fire/fuels, silviculture, and invasive species. FACTS is an activity tracking application for all levels of the Forest Service.
HazFuelTrt_PL (Hazardous Fuel Treatments - Polygon) represents activities of hazardous fuel treatment reduction that are polygons. All accomplishments toward the unified hazardous fuels reduction target must meet the following definition: "Vegetative manipulation designed to create and maintain resilient and sustainable landscapes, including burning, mechanical treatments, and/or other methods that reduce the quantity or change the arrangement of living or dead fuel so that the intensity, severity, or effects of wildland fire are reduced within acceptable ecological parameters and consistent with land management plan objectives, or activities that maintain desired fuel conditions. These conditions should be measurable or predictable using fire behavior prediction models or fire effects models." The data came from the Forest Service's Natural Resource Manager (NRM) Forest Activity Tracking System (FACTS), which is the agency standard for managing information about activities related to fire/fuels, silviculture, and invasive species. FACTS is an activity tracking application for all levels of the Forest Service.
The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (including wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico from the beginning of the Landsat Thematic Mapper archive to the present. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector polygon shapefile of the location of all currently inventoried fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Please visit https://mtbs.gov/announcements to determine the current release. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available or fires were not discernable from available imagery.
Purpose:
The data generated by MTBS will be used to identify national trends in burn severity, providing information necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the National Fire Plan and Healthy Forests Restoration Act. MTBS is sponsored by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), a multi-agency oversight group responsible for implementing and coordinating the National Fire Plan and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies. The MTBS project objective is to provide consistent, 30 meter spatial resolution burn severity data and burned area delineations that will serve four primary user groups including: 1. National policies and policy makers such as the National Fire Plan and WFLC which require information about long-term trends in burn severity and recent burn severity impacts within vegetation types, fuel models, condition classes, and land management activities. 2. Field management units that benefit from mid to broad scale GIS-ready maps and data for pre- and post-fire assessment and monitoring. Field units that require finer scale burn severity data will also benefit from increased efficiency, reduced costs, and data consistency by starting with MTBS data. 3. Existing databases from other comparably scaled programs, such as Fire Regime and Condition Class (FRCC) within LANDFIRE, that will benefit from MTBS data for validation and updating of geospatial data sets. 4. Academic and government agency research entities interested in fire severity data over significant geographic and temporal extents.
The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (including wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico from the beginning of the Landsat Thematic Mapper archive to the present. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector point shapefile of the location of all currently inventoried fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Please visit https://mtbs.gov/announcements to determine the current release. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available or fires were not discernable from available imagery.
Purpose:
The data generated by MTBS will be used to identify national trends in burn severity, providing information necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the National Fire Plan and Healthy Forests Restoration Act. MTBS is sponsored by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), a multi-agency oversight group responsible for implementing and coordinating the National Fire Plan and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies. The MTBS project objective is to provide consistent, 30 meter spatial resolution burn severity data and burned area delineations that will serve four primary user groups including: 1. National policies and policy makers such as the National Fire Plan and WFLC which require information about long-term trends in burn severity and recent burn severity impacts within vegetation types, fuel models, condition classes, and land management activities. 2. Field management units that benefit from mid to broad scale GIS-ready maps and data for pre- and post-fire assessment and monitoring. Field units that require finer scale burn severity data will also benefit from increased efficiency, reduced costs, and data consistency by starting with MTBS data. 3. Existing databases from other comparably scaled programs, such as Fire Regime and Condition Class (FRCC) within LANDFIRE, that will benefit from MTBS data for validation and updating of geospatial data sets. 4. Academic and government agency research entities interested in fire severity data over significant geographic and temporal extents.
The USDA Forest Service Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG) program produces geospatial and related data representing post-fire vegetation condition by means of standardized change detection methods based on Landsat or similar multispectral satellite imagery. RAVG data products characterize the impact of disturbance (fire) on vegetation within a fire perimeter, and include estimates of percent change in live basal area (BA), percent change in canopy cover (CC), and the standardized composite burn index (CBI). Standard thematic products include 7-class percent change in basal area (BA-7), 5-class percent change in canopy cover (CC-5), and 4-class CBI (CBI-4). Contingent upon the availability of suitable imagery, RAVG products are prepared for all wildland fires reported within the conterminous United States (CONUS) that include at least 1000 acres of forested National Forest System (NFS) land (500 acres for Regions 8 and 9 as of 2016). Data for individual fires are typically made available within 45 days after fire containment ("initial assessments"). Late-season fires, however, may be deferred until the following spring or summer ("extended assessments"). Annual national mosaics of each thematic product are prepared at the end of the fire season and updated, as needed, when additional fires from the given year are processed. The annual mosaics are available via the Raster Data Warehouse (RDW, see https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/RDW_Wildfire). A combined perimeter dataset, including the burn boundaries for all published Forest Service RAVG fires from 2012 to the present, is likewise updated as needed (at least annually). This current dataset is derived from the combined perimeter dataset and adds spatial information about land ownership (National Forest) and wilderness status, as well as the areal extent of forested land (pre-fire) that experience a modeled BA loss above 50 and 75 percent.
Purpose:
RAVG data are produced to assist in post-fire vegetation management planning. They are intended to enhance decision-making capabilities and reduce planning and implementation costs associated with post-fire vegetation management. The primary benefit is the cost-effective and efficient identification of potential areas of resource concern following wildfire. RAVG complements the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Imagery Support program, which provides information integral to determining fire effects on soils, by providing information about fire effects on existing vegetation. RAVG analysis produces a first approximation of areas that may require reforestation treatments after a fire in order to re-establish forest cover and restore associated ecosystem services. This initial approximation may be followed by site-specific diagnosis and development of a silvicultural prescription to more precisely identify reforestation needs. The addition of land ownership, wilderness status, and the extent of high percent basal area loss allows users to assess the location and extent of need more precisely.
The USDA Forest Service Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG) program produces geospatial and related data representing post-fire vegetation condition by means of standardized change detection methods based on Landsat or similar multispectral satellite imagery. RAVG data products characterize the impact of disturbance (fire) on vegetation within a fire perimeter, and include estimates of percent change in live basal area (BA), percent change in canopy cover (CC), and the standardized composite burn index (CBI). Standard thematic products include 7-class percent change in basal area (BA-7), 5-class percent change in canopy cover (CC-5), and 4-class CBI (CBI-4). Contingent upon the availability of suitable imagery, RAVG products are prepared for all wildland fires reported within the conterminous United States (CONUS) that include at least 1000 acres of forested National Forest System (NFS) land (500 acres for Regions 8 and 9 as of 2016). Data for individual fires are typically made available within 45 days after fire containment ("initial assessments"). Late-season fires, however, may be deferred until the following spring or summer ("extended assessments"). Annual national mosaics of each thematic product are prepared at the end of the fire season and updated, as needed, when additional fires from the given year are processed. The annual mosaics are available via the Raster Data Warehouse (RDW, see https://apps.fs.usda.gov/arcx/rest/services/RDW_Wildfire). A combined perimeter dataset, including the burn boundaries for all published Forest Service RAVG fires from 2012 to the present, is likewise updated as needed (at least annually).
Purpose:
RAVG data are produced to assist in post-fire vegetation management planning. They are intended to enhance decision-making capabilities and reduce planning and implementation costs associated with post-fire vegetation management. The primary benefit is the cost-effective and efficient identification of potential areas of resource concern following wildfire. RAVG complements the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Imagery Support program, which provides information integral to determining fire effects on soils, by providing information about fire effects on existing vegetation. RAVG analysis produces a first approximation of areas that may require reforestation treatments after a fire in order to re-establish forest cover and restore associated ecosystem services. This initial approximation may be followed by site-specific diagnosis and development of a silvicultural prescription to more precisely identify reforestation needs.
Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 (6th Edition)
This data publication contains a spatial database of wildfires that occurred in the United States from 1992 to 2020. It is the fifth update of a publication originally generated to support the national Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system. The wildfire records were acquired from the reporting systems of federal, state, and local fire organizations. The following core data elements were required for records to be included in this data publication: discovery date, final fire size, and a point location at least as precise as a Public Land Survey System (PLSS) section (1-square mile grid). The data were transformed to conform, when possible, to the data standards of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), including an updated wildfire-cause standard (approved August 2020). Basic error-checking was performed and redundant records were identified and removed, to the degree possible. The resulting product, referred to as the Fire Program Analysis fire-occurrence database (FPA FOD), includes 2.3 million geo-referenced wildfire records, representing a total of 180 million acres burned during the 29-year period. Identifiers necessary to link the point-based, final-fire-reporting information to published large-fire-perimeter and operational-situation-reporting datasets are included.
Purpose:
There is a wealth of information to be found in agency and local fire reports, but even the most rudimentary interagency analyses of wildfire numbers and area burned from the authoritative systems of record have been stymied to some degree by their disunity. While necessarily incomplete in some aspects, the database presented here is intended to facilitate fairly high-resolution geospatial analysis of U.S. fire activity over the period 1992-2020, based on available information from federal, state, and local systems of record. It was originally generated to support the national, interagency Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system (http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/FPA/index.shtml).
