Climate and Topographic Characteristics of Aspen and Aspen-Conifer Habitat of the Western US, 1984-2022

Portions of the western U.S. are experiencing simultaneous increases in wildfire frequency, size, and intensity alongside worsening drought conditions. Despite the importance of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) as a keystone species, drivers of wildfire in aspen forests remain relatively understudied compared to neighboring vegetation types. These data supported investigation into the drivers of wildfire in aspen and aspen-conifer forests across the western US. We compiled data from publicly available datasets of topographic position, surrounding vegetation type and time series (1984-2022) of snow water equivalent, fuel moisture, and normalized difference moisture index for randomly generated points in aspen and aspen-conifer forests in the western US.