LANDFIRE

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The LANDFIRE Program produces geo-spatial products and databases covering the United States of America.[1][2][3] It is also known as “Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools." LANDFIRE is a partnership between the United States Department of Interior, the United States Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy that began officially in 2001. The purpose of LANDFIRE is to create a nationally complete, comprehensive, and consistent set of products that support fire and natural resource management organizations and applications.

LANDFIRE spatial products were designed for use at very large landscape, state, regional or national scales.[4] LANDFIRE Program products have been used in a variety of ways, from supporting large federal wildland fire-related applications such as the Wildland Fire Decision Support System,[5] the Cohesive Strategy initiative, and the Fire Program Analysis Program, to landscape-level conservation planning,[6] regional wildlife studies,[7] ecosystem services,[8] biofuels, and national carbon stock and biomass assessments. The LANDFIRE Program and the Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Gateway and Web-Hosted Applications Map websites list and describe a variety of applications of LANDFIRE products.

Products

LANDFIRE has three primary areas of work: digital spatial data, quantitative vegetation dynamics models and user tools.

Spatial Data

The LANDFIRE Program product set includes a suite of more than 20, 30-meter spatial resolution raster data sets that cover the entire nation, regardless of ownership. All layers are freely available for download from the LANDFIRE Program website, and are delivered in Arc GRID format. The layer suite includes existing vegetation type, cover and height, potential vegetation (Environmental Site Potential), pre-European settlement vegetation (Biophysical Setting), fire regime group, fire behavior fuel models, fire effects, natural and human-caused disturbance, vegetation transition rules, and others. In 2011, the program delivered the LANDFIRE 2008 (LF_2008 version - V1.1.0) Refresh update which provided a series of disturbance layers that represent natural and human-caused disturbances over the update period (from 1999-2008 ).

File:LANDFIRE's Fire Regime Group Map.jpg
LANDFIRE's Fire Regime Group Map

Ecological Models

The LANDFIRE Program has developed a series of quantitative vegetation dynamics models, which are also free and available from the LANDFIRE Program website. LANDFIRE vegetation dynamics models quantitatively describe the pre-European settlement succession and disturbance pathways for each major Ecological System [9] in the U.S. A detailed description of the Ecological System is also provided. The descriptions are available as PDF files; the ecological models are delivered as a Microsoft Access database to be used with the Vegetation Dynamics Development Tool.[10] These models and descriptions are used in the Landscape Conservation Forecasting process,[11] Forest Scenario Modeling [12] and other on the ground decision making efforts .

Tools

LANDFIRE and partners created a number of tools aimed at helping users utilize LANDFIRE and other spatial data sets. The FRCC Map Tool provides a platform for computing vegetation departure, fire regime departure and Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC). The LANDFIRE Program also provided a LANDFIRE Data Access Tool (LFDAT) which allows users to download and process LANDFIRE spatial data directly from ArcMap. More information on tools can be found on the LANDFIRE Program [13] and US Forest Service Wildland Fire Research Development websites. [14]

Versions and update schedule

The LANDFIRE program currently has delivered four data versions.[15] representing three time periods available for public download on the program website. LF1.0.5 provides data circa 2001. Updates from 2001-2008 were identified and incorporated into LF1.0.5 to create LF1.1.0 representing conditions in 2008. Landscape changes from 2008 – 2010 were mapped and incorporated to create LF1.2.0 (2010). Most recently, the LANDFIRE Program delivered another updated data set (1.3.0) to represent landscape conditions in 2012.

References

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External links

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