This dashboard displays summary wildfire data for those areas of raster wildfires that occur within the selected filters. Change the dashboard view with the filters across the top. Hover over data in each visualization for more information. Rows resize to fit the selected data. You may need to select more narrow filter options to obtain the best visual results.
Wildland Fire Trends Tool Active
By Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
November 8, 2022
The Wildland Fire Trends Tool (WFTT) is a data visualization and analysis tool that calculates and displays wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. Users can use the tool to easily generate a variety of maps, graphs, and tabular data products that are informative for all levels of expertise. The WFTT provides information that can be used for a wide range of purposes, from helping to set agency fire management objectives to providing useful information to scientists, interested public, and the media.
Land and fire managers often ask the questions:
- Where are wildfires burning?
- Are wildfires burning more area over time?
- What are general trends in wildfire size?
- What are general trends in wildfire count?
- Are some locations experiencing more wildfire than others?
Answers to these questions can inform fire management and help people understand how fire activity is changing across the landscape and over time. Accurately answering these questions is critical for numerous federal, state, and local agencies who manage fire-prone landscapes. Information about past fires can help managers assess risk and plan for fuel management and restoration needs. In addition, a better understanding of fire occurrence can help to justify the tremendous public expense to prevent, manage, and rehabilitate ecosystems following wildfire.
The WFTT is a publicly available web application that will retrieve fire data and generate graphically compelling maps and charts of fire activity. Although wildland fire data are publicly available, these data are often unusable to those without specific expertise. Many data sets require knowledge of Geographic Information System (GIS), have significant limitations that may confound their use and interpretation, or require statistical expertise to appropriately assess and summarize. For example, wildfire trend discrepancies can confuse public perceptions of wildfire risk and confound management and policy decisions, making it less clear how, where, and when to address fire management.
The tool provides wildland fire data in two formats:
The Wildland Fire Perimeter Dashboard displays historical fire records (1830s-2020) that represent the entire area within the boundary of wildfire and/or prescribed fire (Welty and Jeffries 2021). These historical fire data are from a variety of sources, and wildland fire records prior to 1984 are less likely to be complete, especially for smaller fires. Because of the incomplete documentation, we suggest you filter out the smaller fires that are less than 1,000 acres. This suggestion follows commonly used methodology, such as that used for the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
The Wildfire Burned Area Dashboard displays yearly trends in area burned by wildfire (over 1,000 acres in size) for a recent period of record (1984-2019) classified using Landsat imagery (MTBS; Eidenshink 2007). The data exclude prescribed fires and any unburned area within a fire perimeter.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Technical Notes
Some figures displayed on the Wildland Fire Perimeter Dashboard and Wildfire Burned Area Dashboard use log transformed data. Wildfire data typically have non-normal distributions and log transformation of the data is a commonly used assessment method, as described by Williams et al. 2019, for example. To determine whether the area burned over time is increasing or decreasing, we calculated Sen’s slope for log-transformed fire area data, which indicates the magnitude of a trend, and then used the Mann-Kendall test to evaluate if a trend is increasing or decreasing over time and if the direction is significant. If trends are changing consistently, they are considered monotonic. The adjusted p-value indicates significance, and it accounts for autocorrelation of time series data using methods developed by Hamed and Rao (1998) and Hamed (2009). Trends are not calculated for query areas less than 50,000 ha or in which over 50% of years had no fire. For display purposes, the data in graphs of burned area trends are back-transformed to original units (hectares or acres).
Data Disclaimer
Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data for other purposes, nor on all computer systems, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. The USGS or the U.S. Government shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. These data do not depict real time information. Please see the listed data sources for more information on input data.
Data Sources
Wildland Fire Data Sources
Welty, J.L., and Jeffries, M.I., 2021, Combined wildland fire datasets for the United States and certain territories, 1800s-Present: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ZXGFY3
MTBS Data Access: Raster Geospatial Data. (2021, September - last revised). MTBS Project (USDA Forest Service/U.S. Geological Survey). Available online: https://www.mtbs.gov/direct-download
Ancillary Data Sources
Bunzel, Ken; Ager, Alan A.; Day, Michelle A.; Dillon, Gregory K. 2021. Community zones for assessing wildfire exposure in the United States. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2021-0046
Eidenshink, J., B. Schwind, K. Brewer, Z. Zhu, B. Quayle, and S. Howard. 2007. A Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity. Fire Ecology 3: 3–21. https://doi.org/10.4996/fireecology.0301003
Hamed, K. H., and A. Ramachandra Rao. 1998. A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data. Journal of Hydrology 204:182–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(97)00125-X
Hamed, K. H. 2009. Enhancing the effectiveness of prewhitening in trend analysis of hydrologic data. Journal of Hydrology 368:143–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.01.040
LANDFIRE, LANDFIRE: Biophysical Settings, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed July 2021 at https://landfire.gov/bps.php
National Interagency Fire Center, Jurisdictional Unit Tile Map Service, 2020, Accessed February 2022, https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=3b2c5daad00742cd9f9b676c09d03d13
Short, Karen C.; Grenfell, Isaac C.; Riley, Karin L.; Vogler, Kevin C. 2020. Pyromes of the conterminous United States. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2020-0020
Williams, A. P., J. T. Abatzoglou, A. Gershunov, J. Guzman-Morales, D. A. Bishop, J. K. Balch, and D. P. Lettenmaier. 2019. Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in California. Earth’s Future 7:892–910. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001210
U.S. Census Bureau, 2021, TIGER/Line Files, Redistricting Census, https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2013, Level III ecoregions of the continental United States: Corvallis, Oregon, U.S. EPA – National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/level-iii-and-iv-ecoregions-continental-united-states
If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.
How to Interact with the Burned Area Dashboard of the Wildland Fire Trends Tool
This dashboard displays summary wildfire data for those areas of raster wildfires that occur within the selected filters. Change the dashboard view with the filters across the top. Hover over data in each visualization for more information. Rows resize to fit the selected data. You may need to select more narrow filter options to obtain the best visual results.
How to Interact with the Wildland Fire Trends Tool Perimeter Dashboard
This dashboard displays summary data for portions of wildland fire perimeters (polygons) that occur within the selected filters. To display fire trends, it is recommended to filter out the smallest fires - those less than 1,000 acres. For large queries, please allow the tool a minute to process the request.
This dashboard displays summary data for portions of wildland fire perimeters (polygons) that occur within the selected filters. To display fire trends, it is recommended to filter out the smallest fires - those less than 1,000 acres. For large queries, please allow the tool a minute to process the request.
The Wildland Fire Trends Tool (WFTT) is a data visualization and analysis tool that calculates and displays wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. Users can use the tool to easily generate a variety of maps, graphs, and tabular data products that are informative for all levels of expertise. The WFTT provides information that can be used for a wide range of purposes, from helping to set agency fire management objectives to providing useful information to scientists, interested public, and the media.
Land and fire managers often ask the questions:
- Where are wildfires burning?
- Are wildfires burning more area over time?
- What are general trends in wildfire size?
- What are general trends in wildfire count?
- Are some locations experiencing more wildfire than others?
Answers to these questions can inform fire management and help people understand how fire activity is changing across the landscape and over time. Accurately answering these questions is critical for numerous federal, state, and local agencies who manage fire-prone landscapes. Information about past fires can help managers assess risk and plan for fuel management and restoration needs. In addition, a better understanding of fire occurrence can help to justify the tremendous public expense to prevent, manage, and rehabilitate ecosystems following wildfire.
The WFTT is a publicly available web application that will retrieve fire data and generate graphically compelling maps and charts of fire activity. Although wildland fire data are publicly available, these data are often unusable to those without specific expertise. Many data sets require knowledge of Geographic Information System (GIS), have significant limitations that may confound their use and interpretation, or require statistical expertise to appropriately assess and summarize. For example, wildfire trend discrepancies can confuse public perceptions of wildfire risk and confound management and policy decisions, making it less clear how, where, and when to address fire management.
The tool provides wildland fire data in two formats:
The Wildland Fire Perimeter Dashboard displays historical fire records (1830s-2020) that represent the entire area within the boundary of wildfire and/or prescribed fire (Welty and Jeffries 2021). These historical fire data are from a variety of sources, and wildland fire records prior to 1984 are less likely to be complete, especially for smaller fires. Because of the incomplete documentation, we suggest you filter out the smaller fires that are less than 1,000 acres. This suggestion follows commonly used methodology, such as that used for the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) program.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
The Wildfire Burned Area Dashboard displays yearly trends in area burned by wildfire (over 1,000 acres in size) for a recent period of record (1984-2019) classified using Landsat imagery (MTBS; Eidenshink 2007). The data exclude prescribed fires and any unburned area within a fire perimeter.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Technical Notes
Some figures displayed on the Wildland Fire Perimeter Dashboard and Wildfire Burned Area Dashboard use log transformed data. Wildfire data typically have non-normal distributions and log transformation of the data is a commonly used assessment method, as described by Williams et al. 2019, for example. To determine whether the area burned over time is increasing or decreasing, we calculated Sen’s slope for log-transformed fire area data, which indicates the magnitude of a trend, and then used the Mann-Kendall test to evaluate if a trend is increasing or decreasing over time and if the direction is significant. If trends are changing consistently, they are considered monotonic. The adjusted p-value indicates significance, and it accounts for autocorrelation of time series data using methods developed by Hamed and Rao (1998) and Hamed (2009). Trends are not calculated for query areas less than 50,000 ha or in which over 50% of years had no fire. For display purposes, the data in graphs of burned area trends are back-transformed to original units (hectares or acres).
Data Disclaimer
Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data for other purposes, nor on all computer systems, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. The USGS or the U.S. Government shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. These data do not depict real time information. Please see the listed data sources for more information on input data.
Data Sources
Wildland Fire Data Sources
Welty, J.L., and Jeffries, M.I., 2021, Combined wildland fire datasets for the United States and certain territories, 1800s-Present: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ZXGFY3
MTBS Data Access: Raster Geospatial Data. (2021, September - last revised). MTBS Project (USDA Forest Service/U.S. Geological Survey). Available online: https://www.mtbs.gov/direct-download
Ancillary Data Sources
Bunzel, Ken; Ager, Alan A.; Day, Michelle A.; Dillon, Gregory K. 2021. Community zones for assessing wildfire exposure in the United States. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2021-0046
Eidenshink, J., B. Schwind, K. Brewer, Z. Zhu, B. Quayle, and S. Howard. 2007. A Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity. Fire Ecology 3: 3–21. https://doi.org/10.4996/fireecology.0301003
Hamed, K. H., and A. Ramachandra Rao. 1998. A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data. Journal of Hydrology 204:182–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(97)00125-X
Hamed, K. H. 2009. Enhancing the effectiveness of prewhitening in trend analysis of hydrologic data. Journal of Hydrology 368:143–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.01.040
LANDFIRE, LANDFIRE: Biophysical Settings, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed July 2021 at https://landfire.gov/bps.php
National Interagency Fire Center, Jurisdictional Unit Tile Map Service, 2020, Accessed February 2022, https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=3b2c5daad00742cd9f9b676c09d03d13
Short, Karen C.; Grenfell, Isaac C.; Riley, Karin L.; Vogler, Kevin C. 2020. Pyromes of the conterminous United States. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2020-0020
Williams, A. P., J. T. Abatzoglou, A. Gershunov, J. Guzman-Morales, D. A. Bishop, J. K. Balch, and D. P. Lettenmaier. 2019. Observed Impacts of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Wildfire in California. Earth’s Future 7:892–910. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001210
U.S. Census Bureau, 2021, TIGER/Line Files, Redistricting Census, https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2013, Level III ecoregions of the continental United States: Corvallis, Oregon, U.S. EPA – National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/level-iii-and-iv-ecoregions-continental-united-states
If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.
How to Interact with the Burned Area Dashboard of the Wildland Fire Trends Tool
This dashboard displays summary wildfire data for those areas of raster wildfires that occur within the selected filters. Change the dashboard view with the filters across the top. Hover over data in each visualization for more information. Rows resize to fit the selected data. You may need to select more narrow filter options to obtain the best visual results.
This dashboard displays summary wildfire data for those areas of raster wildfires that occur within the selected filters. Change the dashboard view with the filters across the top. Hover over data in each visualization for more information. Rows resize to fit the selected data. You may need to select more narrow filter options to obtain the best visual results.
How to Interact with the Wildland Fire Trends Tool Perimeter Dashboard
This dashboard displays summary data for portions of wildland fire perimeters (polygons) that occur within the selected filters. To display fire trends, it is recommended to filter out the smallest fires - those less than 1,000 acres. For large queries, please allow the tool a minute to process the request.
This dashboard displays summary data for portions of wildland fire perimeters (polygons) that occur within the selected filters. To display fire trends, it is recommended to filter out the smallest fires - those less than 1,000 acres. For large queries, please allow the tool a minute to process the request.