LANDFIRE- Percent Low-severity Fire (LANDFIRE.US_130PLS)
Dates
Publication Date
2013-08-31
Citation
Wildland Fire Science, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 20130831, LANDFIRE.US_130PLS: Wildland Fire Science, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey.
Summary
Broad-scale alterations of historical fire regimes and vegetation dynamics have occurred in many landscapes in the U.S. through the combined influence of land management practices, fire exclusion, ungulate herbivory, insect and disease outbreaks, climate change, and invasion of non-native plant species. The LANDFIRE Project produces maps of historical fire regimes and vegetation conditions using the disturbance dynamics model VDDT. The LANDFIRE Project also produces maps of current vegetation and measurements of current vegetation departure from simulated historical reference conditions. These maps support fire and landscape management planning outlined in the goals of the National Fire Plan, Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, [...]
Summary
Broad-scale alterations of historical fire regimes and vegetation dynamics have occurred in many landscapes in the U.S. through the combined influence of land management practices, fire exclusion, ungulate herbivory, insect and disease outbreaks, climate change, and invasion of non-native plant species. The LANDFIRE Project produces maps of historical fire regimes and vegetation conditions using the disturbance dynamics model VDDT. The LANDFIRE Project also produces maps of current vegetation and measurements of current vegetation departure from simulated historical reference conditions. These maps support fire and landscape management planning outlined in the goals of the National Fire Plan, Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Data Summary: The Historical Percent of Low Severity Fires data layer quantifies the percent of all fires that were of low severity. Low severity fires cause less than 25% average replacement of dominant overstory aboveground biomass within a typical fire perimeter. This data layer is derived from vegetation and disturbance dynamics model VDDT. This layer was created by linking the BpS layer to the Percent of Low Severity Fires rulesets. This layer is intended to describe one component of historical fire regime characteristics in the context of the broader historical time period represented by the LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings layer and LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings Model documentation. This geospatial product should display a reasonable approximation of Historical Percent of Low Severity Fires, as documented in the Refresh Model Tracker. Historical percents of low severity fires were classified into 20 categories using 5% increments. Additional data layer values were included to represent Water (111), Snow / Ice (112), Barren (131), and Sparsely Vegetated (132). Vegetated areas that never burned during the simulations were included in the category "Indeterminate Fire Regime Characteristics" (133); these vegetation types either had no defined fire behavior or had extremely low probabilities of fire ignition.
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Percent Low-severity Fire.xml Original FGDC Metadata
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Purpose
LANDFIRE data products are designed to facilitate national- and regional-level strategic planning and reporting of management activities. Data products are created at a 30-meter grid spatial resolution raster data set; however, the applicability of data products varies by location and specific use. Principal purposes of the data products include providing, 1) national-level, landscape-scale geospatial products to support fire and fuels management planning, and, 2) consistent fuels data to support fire planning, analysis, and budgeting to evaluate fire management alternatives. Users are advised to evaluate the data carefully for their applications.
