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In late May 2022, several national media outlets published stories about a new online tool that allows any resident of the United States with Internet access to see their home’s relative risk of catastrophic wildfire over the next 30 years.
The base map for the tool? Data from LANDFIRE, an interagency partnership whose satellite-based mapping layers are built by teams at the USGS EROS Center.
The Risk Factor tool was created by a non-profit group called the First Street Foundation, which debuted its searchable database in 2020 by offering flood risk information for 145 million U.S. properties. Since then, First Street and its partners at the Spatial Informatics Group (SIG) have worked to add a fire risk database to Risk Factor, which began with a look at LANDFIRE.
“The LANDFIRE datasets were the no-brainer go-to (for this project), because of all the effort and investment—national investment—that went into them,” said David Saah of SIG. “It's clearly a cared-after product with a lot of eyes on it.”
Over the course of several months in 2021 and early 2022, First Street and SIG were in steady contact with LANDFIRE teams as they moved through product development. The collaboration speaks to not only to LANDFIRE’s status as a trusted data source, but also to the extensive societal value of open data, open science, and public-private collaboration for improving our understanding of and response to the rapidly shifting property risks associated with a changing climate.
Cloud computing makes it possible to harness huge troves of data for projects like Risk Factor, Saah said, but integrating datasets to derive meaningful, reliable results across the conterminous United States is complex.
“You have all the data, and you have the willingness to work together, but the mechanisms of being able to put these layers together in a meaningful way … that’s become super hard to do,” Saah said. “You can’t do this on your own, so we end up teaming up with individuals who are able to pool resources and meet those needs.”
There are multiple ways to access and work with satellite-derived datasets today, many of which did not exist a decade ago. LANDFIRE datasets are downloadable at no cost to users through the program’s website, for example, but are also accessible through bulk downloads or on ArcGIS online. The Risk Factor team used both LANDFIRE products and data from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity—itself an input for the LANDFIRE program—which is another USGS EROS-based project that uses Landsat satellite data to map all large fires in the conterminous United States (CONUS).
First Street used GEE to update LANDFIRE fuels layers to meet their project needs, with LANDFIRE’s Total Fuels Change Tool as a guide. The First Street team also folded in information on large fires from MTBS and updated its Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas across the United States, using Landsat data and LANDFIRE information on vegetation type, height, and cover.
Part of that work involved correspondence with the LANDFIRE team to prepare the data for cloud-based processing, according to Carrie Levine of First Street, and then sharing the results and lessons learned.
“There was an idea from the beginning that if we can get this built out in Earth Engine, that might be useful to the LANDFIRE team, too. That’s something that we can share.”
That’s one of the things that makes engagement with the user community so valuable, according to Inga La Puma, a contractor at EROS who serves as the technical lead for LANDFIRE. The program has just released LANDFIRE 2020, the second annual update in its history, and will immediately begin work on LANDFIRE 2022. Collaborating with users and learning how their processes play out on different platforms has the potential to benefit LANDFIRE production teams as they work on those updates, she said.
“We’re always talking about the possibilities, about what we can do, and trying to communicate that to our stakeholders,” La Puma said. “Being able to utilize all these, to emulate some of those processes within the LANDFIRE workflow, that’s what I want to take out of it.”
For Tim Hatten, project manager for LANDFIRE at the USGS EROS Center, the Risk Factor tool’s use of LANDFIRE datasets is further evidence of their utility. The LANDFIRE website maintains an interactive map filled with examples of data usage from nearly every State, for projects that involve fire science, wildlife habitat studies, carbon sequestration assessments, and hazard mitigation planning.
“It’s always exciting and gratifying to see how our stakeholders are incorporating and using LANDFIRE data,” Hatten said.
Click here to access LANDFIRE 2020.
Click here to access the LANDFIRE Data and Applications fact sheet.
Learn more about the fire science work of the USGS EROS Center.
Listen to "Eyes on Earth" to learn about fire science projects supported by the USGS EROS Center.
Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours.
Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours.
Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements.
Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements.
The fire science community is always on the lookout for the freshest satellite-derived fire disturbance maps. Aiming to meet those needs, the multi-agency partnership known as LANDFIRE has just released an update that adds three new years of disturbances across the U.S. to its 20-plus layers of GIS data.
The fire science community is always on the lookout for the freshest satellite-derived fire disturbance maps. Aiming to meet those needs, the multi-agency partnership known as LANDFIRE has just released an update that adds three new years of disturbances across the U.S. to its 20-plus layers of GIS data.
Teams at the USGS EROS Center have completed fire atlases for nine National Parks across the U.S. Each atlas defines the size and severity of each fire in each park since 1984, including fires too small to be mapped by other programs. Yellowstone National Park has had nearly 100 fires, for example, ranging from a few acres to thousands of acres.
Teams at the USGS EROS Center have completed fire atlases for nine National Parks across the U.S. Each atlas defines the size and severity of each fire in each park since 1984, including fires too small to be mapped by other programs. Yellowstone National Park has had nearly 100 fires, for example, ranging from a few acres to thousands of acres.
In the days before LANDFIRE, fire scientists often struggled to find the vegetation and fuels data they needed to map the path of fires, keep firefighters safe, and to model fire recovery.
In the days before LANDFIRE, fire scientists often struggled to find the vegetation and fuels data they needed to map the path of fires, keep firefighters safe, and to model fire recovery.
The continent of Australia experienced some of the most devastating wildfires in its history in late 2019 and early 2020. Remote sensing scientists in Australia, who collaborate closely with EROS, relied on satellites like Landsat to help assess and monitor the damage.
The continent of Australia experienced some of the most devastating wildfires in its history in late 2019 and early 2020. Remote sensing scientists in Australia, who collaborate closely with EROS, relied on satellites like Landsat to help assess and monitor the damage.
Scientists at EROS have spent years refining their approach to mapping burn severity using remotely-sensed data from satellites like Landsat, but Landsat comes with limitations. Landsat data cannot see the vegetation below a thick tree canopy, for example.
Scientists at EROS have spent years refining their approach to mapping burn severity using remotely-sensed data from satellites like Landsat, but Landsat comes with limitations. Landsat data cannot see the vegetation below a thick tree canopy, for example.
Learn more about the fire science work of the USGS EROS Center.
Listen to "Eyes on Earth" to learn about fire science projects supported by the USGS EROS Center.
Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours.
Satellites like Landsat are valuable for mapping fire perimeters and for monitoring trends in burn severity or in post-fire recovery. Satellites can cover wide areas with a single pass, whereas helicopter, drone, or airplane fire line mapping can take hours.
Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements.
Mapping fire perimeters is important work. It guides post-fire restoration efforts, fire mitigation strategies, and helps track of trends in burn severity over time. In the past, many of Canada’s fire agencies relied heavily on techniques like sketch mapping, which estimate burned area without exact measurements.
The fire science community is always on the lookout for the freshest satellite-derived fire disturbance maps. Aiming to meet those needs, the multi-agency partnership known as LANDFIRE has just released an update that adds three new years of disturbances across the U.S. to its 20-plus layers of GIS data.
The fire science community is always on the lookout for the freshest satellite-derived fire disturbance maps. Aiming to meet those needs, the multi-agency partnership known as LANDFIRE has just released an update that adds three new years of disturbances across the U.S. to its 20-plus layers of GIS data.
Teams at the USGS EROS Center have completed fire atlases for nine National Parks across the U.S. Each atlas defines the size and severity of each fire in each park since 1984, including fires too small to be mapped by other programs. Yellowstone National Park has had nearly 100 fires, for example, ranging from a few acres to thousands of acres.
Teams at the USGS EROS Center have completed fire atlases for nine National Parks across the U.S. Each atlas defines the size and severity of each fire in each park since 1984, including fires too small to be mapped by other programs. Yellowstone National Park has had nearly 100 fires, for example, ranging from a few acres to thousands of acres.
In the days before LANDFIRE, fire scientists often struggled to find the vegetation and fuels data they needed to map the path of fires, keep firefighters safe, and to model fire recovery.
In the days before LANDFIRE, fire scientists often struggled to find the vegetation and fuels data they needed to map the path of fires, keep firefighters safe, and to model fire recovery.
The continent of Australia experienced some of the most devastating wildfires in its history in late 2019 and early 2020. Remote sensing scientists in Australia, who collaborate closely with EROS, relied on satellites like Landsat to help assess and monitor the damage.
The continent of Australia experienced some of the most devastating wildfires in its history in late 2019 and early 2020. Remote sensing scientists in Australia, who collaborate closely with EROS, relied on satellites like Landsat to help assess and monitor the damage.
Scientists at EROS have spent years refining their approach to mapping burn severity using remotely-sensed data from satellites like Landsat, but Landsat comes with limitations. Landsat data cannot see the vegetation below a thick tree canopy, for example.
Scientists at EROS have spent years refining their approach to mapping burn severity using remotely-sensed data from satellites like Landsat, but Landsat comes with limitations. Landsat data cannot see the vegetation below a thick tree canopy, for example.
