Pre-fire biomass, burn severity, biomass consumption, and fire perimeter data for the 1987 Black Dragon Fire in China

Geospatial data were developed to characterize pre-fire biomass, burn severity, and biomass consumed for the Black Dragon Fire that burned in northern China in 1987. Pre-fire aboveground tree biomass (Mh/ha) raster data were derived by relating plot-level forest inventory data with pre-fire Landsat imagery from 1986 and 1987. Biomass data were generated for individual species: Dahurian larch (Larix gmelinii Rupr. Kuzen), white birch (Betula platyphylla Suk), aspen (Populus davidiana Dode and Populus suaveolens Fischer), and Mongolian Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica Litvinov). A raster layer of total aboveground tree biomass was also generated. Burned area was manually delineated using the normalized burn ratio (NBR) calculated from post-fire Landsat imagery. Burn severity categories include unburned, low, moderate, and high, and were mapped using established relationships between NBR and the composite burn index (CBI). Aboveground biomass consumption (Mg/ha) was calculated using biomass consumption rates specific to individual species and burn severity categories. Based on these data, the Black Dragon Fire burned 1.3 million ha and consumed 36.99 Tg of aboveground biomass.