Fire Regimes
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The relationship between climate and wildfire area burned suggests how fire regimes may respond to a changing climate. This West-wide data publication contains a 27-year record (1980-2006) of climatological variables used to develop statistical models of area burned that can be projected into the future. We provide a separate file for each of the 56 Bailey’s ecosections (Bailey 2016) across the West, with annual area burned and 112 climate predictor variables such as evapotranspiration, precipitation, relative humidity, soil moisture, snow-water equivalent, minimum and maximum temperature, and vapor pressure deficit. These historical and future hydroclimate projections and historical fire area burned data were derived for McKenzie and Littell (2016).
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This guide is designed to provide direction on the critique and modification of LANDFIRE geospatial data products for local applications. It is not so much a “cookbook” or “how-to” guide, as the specifics vary greatly by data product, intended use, scale, and location. Rather, it presents primary considerations for using and modifying the data for use in local applications and provide examples and demonstrations of available tools and methods for completing common critique and modification tasks.
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This KQED Science article indicates that since 1600, the way humans have used land in the Sierra has had more effect on fire behavior than climate change. Valerie Trouet, associate professor of dendrochronology at the University of Arizona and lead coauthor of a study about humans and fire, suggests that land managers and owners can affect fire behavior through activities that make forests more resilient.
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This study provides quantitative evidence linking long-term declines of sage-grouse to chronic effects of wildfire. Projected declines may be slowed or halted by targeting fire suppression in remaining areas of intact sagebrush with high densities of breeding sage-grouse.
Access data review.
The purpose of the Data Product Review website is to provide a place where people can work through a review process of various LANDFIRE data products and a method for submitting feedback and suggestions on a number of LANDFIRE data products in a guidebook structure. The site is based on a content management platform with structured content for a dynamic web experience. The feedback and suggestions will be reviewed both within and external to LANDFIRE and potentially improve future mapping updates and remaps.
View report.
The Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy outlined the need for coordinated, science-based adaptive management to achieve long-term protection, conservation, and restoration of the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystem. A key component of this management approach is the identification of knowledge gaps that limit implementation of effective strategies to meet current management challenges. The tasks and actions identified in the Strategy address several broad topics related to management of the sagebrush ecosystem. This science plan is organized around these topics and specifically focuses on fire, invasive plant species and their effects on altering fire regimes, restoration, sagebrush and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), and climate and weather.
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This research suggests that widespread environmental change within sagebrush ecosystems, especially the fire-cheatgrass cycle (e.g., invasion of cheatgrass and increased fire frequency) and human land disturbances, are directly and indirectly influencing ground squirrels and badgers.
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This New York Times article reports on the lengthening fire season in the western US and beyond. From the article: Fires, once largely confined to a single season, have become a continual threat in some places, burning earlier and later in the year, in the United States and abroad. They have ignited in the West during the winter and well into the fall, have arrived earlier than ever in Canada and have burned without interruption in Australia for almost 12 months.
Access FEIS database.
The FEIS database provides access to more than 1,200 species reviews, 150 fire studies, and is now producing fire regime syntheses. This suite of products provides information on plant, lichen, and wildlife species’ life history, ecology, and relationship to fire and detailed descriptions of site characteristics, burning conditions, fire behavior, and fire effects. This spatially searchable database was developed by the USDA-FS, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, Montana.
Access LANDFIRE tools.
LANDFIRE is a shared program between the wildland fire management programs of the USDA-FS and DOI, providing landscape scale geo-spatial products to support cross-boundary planning, management, and operations. It provides over 20 national geo-spatial layers (e.g. vegetation, fuel, disturbance, etc.), databases, and ecological models that are available to the public for the US and insular areas.
View an introductory LANDFIRE video.