Extended Abstract (232K)J10D.1
LANDFIRE: A nationally consistent and locally relevant interagency fire, fuels, and risk assesment
Matthew G. Rollins, USDA Forest Service, Missoula, MT; and R. E. Keane, Z. Zhu, J. Menakis, W. Hann, and A. Shlisky
LANDFIRE is an interagency effort to develop a comprehensive suite of standardized, multi-scale spatial data layers and software needed to support implementation of the National Fire Plan, Cohesive Strategy, and the President's Healthy Forest Initiative across the United States. By maintaining focus on fire/fuel dynamics and scientifically credible local-to-national applications, LANDFIRE builds on existing coarse maps of Fire Regime Condition Class created in 1999 by Colin Hardy and other scientists at the Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana. LANDFIRE integrates several methodologies for predictive landscape modeling including biophysical gradient modeling, remote sensing, vegetation and fuels modeling, and ecophysiological simulation into a comprehensive process for mapping vegetation, fire, and fuel characteristics. LANDIRE methods are based on many years of successful scientific research projects and are grounded in a 25-year collaboration between the USGS EROS data center and the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory. LANDFIRE will create maps that characterize vegetation condition, fire behavior and effects, and departures from historical fire regimes, known as fire regime condition classes. These maps may be used for prioritizing areas for hazard reduction, landscape rehabilitation, and ecological restoration projects. They may also be used strategically to reduce wildfire costs, losses, and damages by prioritizing communities and ecosystems that are at high risk from wildland fires. LANDFIRE models and methods are currently being developed and tested in two large prototype areas in the western United States - Central Utah and the Northern Rocky Mountains - at 30-meter pixel resolution.
Joint Session 10D, Landfire (Special Session) (TRACK IV)
Wednesday, 19 November 2003, 8:00 AM-1:30 PM
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