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Fuel Break Treatments in the Sagebrush Biome of the Western United States, 1953 - 2018

Dates

Publication Date
Start Date
1953
End Date
2018

Citation

Weise, C.L., Coates, P.S., Ricca, M.A., Crist, M.R., Welty, J.L., Pilliod, D.S., Shinneman, D.J., Aldridge, C.L., Heinrichs, J.A., and Chenaille, M.P., 2024, Fuel break treatments in the sagebrush biome of the western United States, 1953 - 2018: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9B9LB34.

Summary

To better inform fuel break planning and assessment, we developed a comprehensive spatial database of known existing fuel breaks from 1953 to 2018 throughout the western United States. Each fuel break is represented as a polygon in the database and is attributed with the date of installation, the treatment type employed, and the data source. The availability of these data promotes the development of a monitoring framework to track the maintenance and longevity of different treatment types, as well as record the use, conditions, and outcomes of suppression activities at specific fuel break locations. The data also facilitate the quantification of important temporally varying qualities that may influence suppression, such as vegetation [...]

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Shapefile: Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.zip
Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.dbf 1.26 MB
Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.prj 480 Bytes
Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.shp 69.22 MB
Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.shx 13.97 KB
Fuel_Breaks_Sagebrush_Biome.cpg 9 Bytes

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Questions pertaining to the intended use of, or assistance with understanding limitations or interpretation of these data are to be directed to the individuals/organization listed in the Point of Contact section. Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata, and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Purpose

Significant increases in wildfire activity in the western U.S. threaten public safety, infrastructure, economic activities, and wildlife within sagebrush ecosystems. Fuel breaks are a key strategy for wildfire management, providing staging grounds for wildfire suppression operations and can help fire crews compartmentalize landscapes to limit fire spread. The Bureau of Land Management is planning to significantly expand the existing network of fuel breaks across the sagebrush biome, adding up to approximately 17,000 kilometers of linear fuel breaks over about a 90 million hectare region centered on the Great Basin. However, assessments of the performance of existing fuel breaks are lacking, partially because there has been no systematic collection of relative data regarding fuel break use and effectiveness. Also, the installation and maintenance and inherent fragmentation of the landscape associated with fuel breaks may have repercussions on sagebrush ecosystems and species of concern.

Rights

This work is marked with Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

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ScienceBase WMS

ScienceBase WFS

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  • USGS Data Release Products
  • USGS Western Ecological Research Center

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DOI https://www.sciencebase.gov/vocab/category/item/identifier doi:10.5066/P9B9LB34

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