LANDFIRE: How can I use it?

In our last post we tried to answer the question: “Is LANDFIRE for me?” Well, there is only one way to find out--inspect the data to determine if it has the qualities you need to meet your objectives. You don’t have to have a PhD in vegetation modeling or be a GIS guru to review LANDFIRE data. The LANDFIRE team has support materials and support staff to help you.

Remember that LANDFIRE datasets were developed for national and regional level strategic planning and reporting, but because of their comprehensive and complete nature there is a demand for them for finer scale applications. The applicability of LANDFIRE data varies by location and specific application so users are encouraged to carefully review the datasets to determine their suitability on a project-by-project basis.

A team of ecologists reviews LANDFIRE data in the field.

Reviewing datasets is not something many of us are trained to do and yet it is a critical step to ensure that you use data appropriately, and end up with a final product that meets your needs. To evaluate a dataset you need time to explore and consider its attributes, and maybe a little help from your friends and colleagues. For example, if your background is in fuels planning, you might want to have your local ecologist available when reviewing the vegetation maps; if you are an ecologist, you may need your fuels planner to better understand the fire behavior fuel model layers. 

LANDFIRE developed three user guides to help users review and modify its vegetation dynamics models and its suite of geo-spatial layers:

·      Reviewing & Modifying LANDFIRE Vegetation Dynamics Models

·      Reviewing & Modifying LANDFIRE Spatial Products

·      Adapting LANDFIRE Vegetation Dynamics Models
 

The above guides offer to-the-point advice and easy-to-follow checklists to help users through the process. The guides are complimented by a set of step-by-step videos and tutorials that explain how to perform common data modifications such as:

·      Overlay Grids Using the "Combine" Function

·      Calculate the Area for Each Type Mapped in a Grid

·      Editing Raster Attributes

·      Making a New Raster

·      Review and Modify FRCC Mapping Tool Reference Conditions

These materials build on existing LANDFIRE-related courses.

Need more help? Contact any member of The Nature Conservancy’s LANDFIRE Team, the National Interagency Fuels, Fire and Vegetation Technology Transfer Team National Interagency Fuels, Fire and Vegetation Technology Transfer Teamor the LANDFIRE help desk.

 

KORI BLANKENSHIP
fire ecologist
The Nature Conservancy
Bend,Oregon

kblankenship@tnc.org

206.276.3432

 

LANDFIRE: Is it for me?

Maybe. If you are engaged in research or fire and land management activities that require vegetation, fuel or fire regime information, LANDFIRE may be for you.

LANDFIRE is an ongoing national program that is producing continuous vegetation-and fire- related spatial data and ecological models for the entire United States. That’s wall-to-wall data for all 50 states, served for free on the LANDFIRE Data Distribution site and through the LANDFIRE Data Access Tool.

If you already have high-quality, up-to-date spatial data and ecological models for all the variables you want across your area of interest, LANDFIRE is probably not for you. Most folks are not so lucky, finding that they have no data, old data, are missing some variables, or need to fill data gaps (e.g. on private lands). If the latter describes you, read on.

LANDFIRE National Fire Regime Groups / Cartographer: Sarah Hagen

LANDFIRE has proven useful for a variety of fire management and natural resource management activities including:

Regional and National Level Wildland Fire 
Planning and Prioritization

LANDFIRE fuel and vegetation layers are used to support Fire Program Analysis (FPA), Hazardous Fuels Prioritization and Allocation System (HFPAS) and the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.

Incident Management

LANDFIRE’s fuel products include all the geospatial layers required to run tools such as FlamMap, FARSITE and FSPro. These data have provided decision support information to fire managers working on wildfire incidents around the country. For example:

·      Use of LANDFIRE Data in Wildland Fire Risk Assessment: Ashley Lakes Fire,

·      Use of LANDFIRE Data Products on Fire Incidents in 2007, and

·      Use of LANDFIRE Data in Wildland Fire Incident Management: Dammeron & Valley Road Fires.

Fuel Planning and Prioritization

The Signal Peak Project, Upper Mimbres Watershed Landscape Assessment and Spokane Agency Multi-Year Fuels Planning Project each used LANDFIRE fuels data to model fire behavior in support of fuel planning and prioritization efforts.

Community Wildfire Protection Planning

The Cowychee Mountain CWPP and the Upper Fraser Valley CWPP plans both used LANDFIRE fuel data to model potential fire behavior in their planning area.

LANDFIRE products were developed to support national and regional level analyses, but may also be useful at local scales. In the end there is only one way to find out if LANDFIRE will work for you, and that is to inspect the data yourself. This doesn’t have to be a daunting task-- our next post will tell you how!

KORI BLANKENSHIP
fire ecologist
------------------------------------------------
The Nature Conservancy
Bend, Oregon
kblankenship@tnc.org

206.276.3432

When New Fire Meets Old Fire

When New Fire Meets Old Fire - 

Thoughts on reburns, plus our recent round-up of science on the subject

My family drove over to the Tetons and Yellowstone for a raft trip on the Snake River and some camping recently.  Smoke filled the skies from Boise to Wyoming.  It looked much like the smog in the Los Angeles Basin of the 1970’s. On our final day at Teton National Park you could not see the mountains, but you could look directly at the red morning sun.

Yellowstone Reborn

It was flashback time for me as I recalled working the 1988 Fan Fire in the northwest corner of Yellowstone.  Every afternoon the wind came up strong out of the west and the daily crown fire ensued, especially on the North Fork Fire, near West Yellowstone.  

Almost a quarter of a century later, we traveled the width of Yellowstone witnessing both the extent of the 1988 conflagration and the renewal of the current forest. By car, the journey across Yellowstone is some 65 miles and can take a couple of hours to traverse. By fire, in 1988, that journey took from July into early September when rain and snow brought the flames back to the ground - although they burned into November awaiting winter’s white blanket.  

While we drove through the park, I wondered what would happen if today’s fires collided with previous conflagrations such as Yellowstone?  Do the old fires alter the direction, intensity, or severity of today’s blazes?Would the older fires re-burn with new found vigor or be constrained by past fire history?

As fires continue to burn across the West this fall, many are overlapping terrain that burned previously via wildland fire, prescribed fire, or both -  in the recent or distant past. This week we bring you some science to shine a bit of light on the complexities that determine what happens when fire meets fire.

Characterizing Fire-on-Fire Interactions in Three Large Wilderness Areas by authors Casey C. Teske, Carl A. Seielstad, and LLoyd P. Queen.

Short-and Long-Term Effects on Fuels,Forest Structure,and Wildfire Potential from Prescribed Fire and Resource Benefit Fire in Southwestern Forests, USA by authors Molly Hunter, Jose M. Iniguez, and Leigh B. Lentile. 

Burn Severity of Areas Reburned in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico, by authors Zachary A. Holden, Penelope Morgan, and Andrew T. Hudak. 

Comparison of Burn Severities of Consecutive Large-scale Fires in Florida Sand Pine Scrub using Satellite Imagery Analysis, by authors David Godwin and Leda Kobziar.

Stand Replacing Patches within a 'Mixed Severity' Fire Regime: Quantitative Characterization Using Recent Fires in a Long-established Natural Fire Area, by authors B.M Collins and S.L Stephens.
 

Interactions Among Wildland Fires in a Long-established Sierra Nevada Natural Fire Area, by authors  B.M. Collins, J.D. Miller, A.E. Thode, M. Kelly, J.W. van Wagtendonk, and S.L. Stephens.

Factors Associated with Crown Damage Following Recurring Mixed-severity Wildfires and Post-fire Management in Southwestern Oregon, by authors J.R Thompson and B.A. Spies.
 

Reburns in the news in Idaho  where Elizabeth Reinhardt, U.S Forest Service assistant director for fire ecology and fuels, talks about how Old Burns Slow New Fires Across Idaho. 

Enjoy the information. Please contribute your experience, impressions, and links to more reburn science!

Keep smilin’,

Tim Swedberg
Joint Fire Science Program
Director of Communications
tswedber@blm.gov