Fuels Data for the 2000 Highland Creek Fire and 2017 Legion Lake Fire in Blacks Hills, SD, Collected in 2025

Eleven pre-established plots within the 2000 Highland Creek Fire perimeter were revisited in 2025 with the purpose of characterizing long-term vegetation recovery as well as present-day fuel loads and forest structure. These research plots were originally established in Wind Cave National Park to assess burn severity using the Composite Burn Index. Additionally, 28 plots established in and around the 2017 Legion Lake fire perimeter by Irwin et al. (2022) were revisited. Data were collected between June 12th and 26th, 2025, within 10 m radius plots, modeled after those employed by the IntELiMon program. These data include terrestrial LiDAR scans, fuel measurements, and traditional forestry metrics. Data collection protocol closely followed IntELiMon guidelines, though with additional measurements and LiDAR scans when needed. This data release includes the plot locations shapefile, plot information presented in comma-separated values (CSV) format, and georeferenced point clouds in LAS file format.