LANDFIRE 2012 v1.3.0

LANDFIRE 2012 v1.3.0 data for the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii were delivered in 2013. LANDFIRE 2010 1.2.0 refines urban, agriculture, and wetlands as well as incorporates disturbance (fire, vegetation management, weather, insects and disease) and succession through 2010.

This data is used by WFDSS for fire behavior analysis, and when users query fuels and topographic data on incident and intelligence map displays. Users can change the default selection on the Incident Information page, if they choose. If an analyst chooses a different data source for an analysis, the chosen data source would override the incident default data source for that analysis only.

LANDFIRE 2012 v1.3.0 adds more agricultural land updates from LANDFIRE Refresh 2010 v1.2.0. The update includes:

• LANDFIRE (LF) 2012 was an update to LF2010 to more accurately represent current conditions and account for landscape disturbances that occurred in CY 2011 and 2012. Disturbances include: treatment activities such as wildland fire, fuel and vegetation treatments, mortality from insects and disease, storm damage, invasive plants, and other natural or anthropogenic events.
• LF 2012 used National Agricultural Statistics Service's Cropland Data Layer 2012 (CDL) for agricultural refinements.

Several enhancements were made to the existing vegetation type layer in LF 2012:

• Responses to vegetation successional change in forested types
• Revisions to address discrepancies between map products and known field conditions
• Specific systematic improvements

Canopy fuels (canopy base height, canopy bulk density, stand height and canopy cover) reflect areas with disturbance, i.e. a historical high severity wildfire should now have areas with very low canopy cover and a different fuel model.

Click here for more information about LANDFIRE 2010 v1.2.0 and other LANDFIRE products.

If you are selecting the KBDI version of this data (available only in the Southeastern U.S.), please click here for more information on how that layer is automatically adjusted for drought conditions.

 

Landscape Data Introduction

WFDSS uses the aspect, slope, elevation, fuel model, canopy cover, canopy base height (CBH), canopy bulk density (CBD), and stand height layers to a create landscape file that displays fuels, topography and canopy information simultaneously (go to the Intelligence or Incidents - Situation page, or for fire behavior modeling, go to the Analysis page). Similar to the LANDFIRE data, all values are measured with the metric system:

Variable	Unit of Measure
aspect	degrees
slope	degrees
elevation	meters
canopy base height	meters
canopy bulk density	kg/m3
canopy cover	percent
stand height	meters
fire behavior fuel model	40 or 13 (user selected)

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Last updated on 3/17/2017 12:39:42 PM.

Fire Behavior Modeling Considerations with LANDFIRE 2012 v1.3.0

• Users need to update fire scars and other disturbances after 2012.
• Either the Finney (1998) or Scott and Reinhardt (2001) (https://www.fire.org/downloads/nexus/2.0.0/rp29.pdf) crown fire method (CFM) is suitable for the initial analysis. If you use Finney, you will likely need to double or triple the CBD. This IS NOT necessary when using Scott/Reinhardt. It is also a good practice to critique the CBH when using either CFC method.
• The Scott and Reinhardt CFM will likely produce more spotting, higher rates of spread, and flame lengths, and more passive and active crown fire.
• Users are encouraged to download the LCP critique in WFDSS to evaluate the fire behavior fuel models and canopy attributes that will affect predicted fire behavior.

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Last updated on 12/30/2021 3:17:24 PM.