Establishing a Nationwide Baseline of Historical Burn Severity Data to Support Monitoring of Trends in Wildfire Effects and National Fire Policies

Brian Schwind, Brad Quayle, Ken Brewer, and Jeff Eidenshink

USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing Applications Center (1-3)and USGS/EROS Data Center

There is a need to provide agency leaders, elected officials, and the general public with summary information regarding the effects of large wildfires.  Recently, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), which implements and coordinates National Fire Plan (NFP) and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies (National Fire Plan, 2004), adopted a strategy to monitor the effectiveness and effects of the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA).  One component of this strategy is to assess the environmental impacts of large wildland fires and identify the trends of burn severity on all lands across the United States (WFLC 2004 Monitoring Proposal, Module 2.1)

To that end, WFLC has sponsored a six year project, Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), which requires the USFS and the USGS to map and assess the burn severity for all large current and historical fires.  Using Landsat data and the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) algorithm, the USGS/EROS Data Center and USDA-FS/ Remote Sensing Applications Center will map burn severity of all fires since 1984 greater than 500 acres in the east, and 1000 acres in the west.  The number of historical fires from this period combined with current fires occurring during the course of the project will exceed 9000.

The MTBS project will generate burn severity data, maps, and reports which will be available for use at local, state and national levels to evaluate trends in burn severity and help develop and assess the effectiveness of land management decisions.   Additionally, the information developed will provide a baseline from which to monitor the recovery and health of fire affected landscapes over time.  Spatial and tabular data quantifying burn severity will augment existing information used to estimate risk associated with a range current and future resource threats.   As an example, fire severity data along with associated biophysical characteristics provide an analytical basis for assessing risk from invasive species as well as native insects and pathogens.  All data and results will be distributed to the public via an internet interface. 

Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon

corresponding author:

Brian Schwind
USDA Forest Service
Remote Sensing Applications Center
2222 W. 2300 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
801-975-3765
bschwind@fs.fed.us