The LANDFIRE (LF) Reference Data Base (LFRDB) is a key component of the LF mapping process and contains hundreds of thousands of geo-referenced field plots compiled from a variety of organizations. LF worked in conjunction with NatureServe to create a series of geographically-based "Auto Keys" to create a consistent Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) attribute for each plot.

This assessment was implemented at the end of LF National (LF 1.0.0) to:

• evaluate the quality of the Auto-Keys
• improve the accuracy of the automated EVT assignment

LF 2001 data was archived and can be accessed on USGS ScienceBase or requested through the Help Desk.

LF 2001 enhanced the layers of the LF National data set to provide a foundation upon which to build an updated geospatial data set. The enhancements were developed to facilitate comparative analyses, evaluate trends, and potentially monitor changes over time. In particular, LF 2001 enhancements addressed:

• incomplete data coverage along international borders
• extent of riparian and wetlands features
• agricultural and urban vegetation types as burnable
• extent of barren and water classes
• Biophysical Settings (BPS) in western rangelands using Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO)

Existing vegetation cover and height (EVC & EVH) were remapped in forested areas and all products were updated to reflect refined existing vegetation. Updates included changes caused by 1999 - 2001 fires. LF 2001 was used as an input to strategic wildland fire management decision support systems.

LF 2001 Science Base

LF 2001 products:

Vegetation
Fuel
Fire Regimes
Disturbance
Topography

LANDFIRE (LF) 2016 Remap is the most comprehensive mapping effort in LF's history. This years-long effort included updating the base maps across the original data product suite to create LF's second base map product suite consisting of 28 vegetation and fuels layers. LF Remap products reflect circa 2016 ground conditions.

The initial base map (LF National) product suite was developed using Landsat imagery circa 2001. The product suite was updated regularly using vegetation and fuel transition rulesets to more accurately represent current conditions and account for landscape disturbances (LF 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014). However, with a base map more than 15 years old, LF decided it was time to remap the landscape.

Designed to produce vegetation and fuels data that inform wildland fire and ecological decision systems, LF Remap processes followed consistent methodologies to incorporate current satellite imagery, contemporary data sources, and the latest software and hardware technologies. The resulting LF Remap data products offer significant improvements to all previous LF versions.

Advances in image compositing, satellite image tiling algorithms, plus faster computing hardware ensures LF vegetation and fuels products remain relevant. To achieve this, LF Remap leveraged the Landsat archive, lidar data, and over 1 million ground control plots from a variety of partners and collaborators compiled into the LF Reference Database (LFRDB), to characterize landscape characteristics for more than 9 billion 30-meter pixels across CONUS. Learn more about contributing plot data for future mapping efforts.

Starting with LF 2016 Remap for Alaska (AK), LF products will include a 90-kilometer buffer along the borders of neighboring countries. For LF Remap AK that includes 1,538 miles of border with Canada.

All LF data product categories have been refined as part of the remap effort:   Reference  •  Disturbance  •  Vegetation  •  Fuel  •  Fire Regimes  •  Topographic

'NEW' - Capable Fuels - LF Remap enhancements to fuels products in disturbed areas

A discrepancy in Time Since Disturbance (TSD) 1 (0-1 years) for surface and canopy fuels in disturbed areas existed in previous versions of LF Update products. TSD was not truly representative of the release date. For example, fuel layers created from 2012 disturbance data were released in 2014, meaning TSD lagged two years behind and users had to adjust accordingly. This issue has been corrected in LF Remap fuel products (Fuel Disturbance, Canopy Height, Canopy Cover/Base Density/Base Height, Fire Behavior Fuel Model 13 and 40, Fuel Vegetation Cover/Type/Height, and Fuel Characteristic Classification System) by synchronizing TSDs for surface and canopy fuels in disturbed areas.

What this means is LF Remap fuels products in disturbed areas have been revised to expected 2019 or 2020 vegetation conditions for disturbances that occurred between 2009-2016 or 2010-2016, respectively, making the fuels products 2019 or 2020 capable.

The capable fuels functionality is able to calculate TSD assignments for disturbed areas using an "effective year." Utilizing fuel model transition rulesets, fuels within disturbed areas over the 10-yr period prior are transitioned to the capable year. Therefore, when fire behavior modelers encounter a disturbance (that occurred within the last 10 years) on their landscape, the fuels within the disturbance should reflect growth after the disturbance and up until the capable year, rather than a few years before.

This improves performance of fire behavior modeling and reduces the need for local LF users to update the vegetation and fuel conditions to represent current conditions.

As a result, LF Remap capable fuels layers better represent active and potential wildfire behavior on the current landscape.

LF Remap Changes and Improvements

The LF team at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center used the latest data and processing techniques to produce new vegetation, fuels, and fire regime base layers for the LF Remap data product suite, representing a circa 2016 ground condition.

LF Remap improvements include:

• Unlimited, free access to the Landsat archive: Hundreds of thousands of Landsat 7 and 8 scenes were processed using EROS High Performance Computing resources, resulting in..
  • Better Base Imagery for vegetation mapping
    • Reduced clouds - Image composites were created using the best quality pixels from numerous images for each season to create cloud-free/near-cloud-free imagery.
  • Fewer Seamlines – By using input imagery from a longer time horizon, along with improved preprocessing logic, and hands-on post-processing, the data retain fewer phenological differences within and between imagery tiles.
  • Better map masks – Masks of specific land cover types such as water (Integration of Landsat Essential Climate Variables, i.e. Dynamic Surface Water Extent), barren /sparse that are important to fire behavior were created to exclude these areas from vegetation and fuels layers.
  • Better stratification for vegetation type modeling – This includes alpine or riparian/wetland classes which restrict where certain vegetation types can be identified.
• Vegetation Structure and Lifeform:
  • Improved plot selection - Incorporated the newest contributed data, eliminating outlier plots that may have been impacted by disturbance, and allowing models to be trained using the highest quality inputs.
  • Improved base imagery – Has fewer seamlines and represents a longer time horizon, so that specific vegetation systems can be identified.
  • Structure input information - Developed methods to leverage lidar data, which provides stronger linkages with vegetation structure, so that lifeform classification can be improved.
  • Continuous canopy structure (Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC) and Existing Vegetation Height (EVH)) products – Developed methods to create continuous cover and height products to better inform fuels products.
• Existing Vegetation Type: Flexible vegetation type legends based on data driven range maps and ecoregions. Two classifications systems are used.
  • Ecological Systems – Allows for the comparison of data over time and informs LF fuel products,
  • National Vegetation Classification (NVC) – Standard at the Group level hierarchy.
• Enhancements to Remap Vegetation:
  • Ecological application - Riparian and wetland vegetation classes and sparsely vegetated classes were aggregated in previous LF versions. In LF Remap they are mapped separately.
  • Disturbed areas - Annual disturbance data were used to identify recently disturbed areas based on expected vegetation type recovery period within the previous 10-year period.
  • Wildland-urban interface (WUI) - Developed ruderal classes are better identified by combining updated WUI data with population density information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
  • Standardized ruderal and invasive vegetation types - New ruderal classes identify semi-natural vegetation types using a standardized legend within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification and Ecological Systems.
  • New and improved Auto-Keys - Redesigned to determine existing vegetation type classification based on plot data in the LFRDB.
  • Expert review and feedback - Of draft spatial products before delivery, so that fitness of use can be ensured.
• Additional Enhancements:
  • Field Data – Unprecedented access to the best field data with Bureau of Land Management for Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring plots and Natural Resources Conservation Service for National Resources Inventory plots primarily in non-forest areas.
  • Geographic production unit – Existing Vegetation mapping image classification based on Omernik III/IV Ecoregions instead of National Land Cover Database map zones, which better matches the distribution of major vegetation types and in turn produces better output from modeling and resulting in less manual mapping techniques.
  • Metadata for LF Remap products were improved to include more details.
• LF 2016 Remap New Products:
  • Historical Disturbance – The latest 10 years of disturbance data representing disturbance year and original disturbance type and severity, allowing multiple years of disturbance to be captured for each pixel. This allows a historical representation of disturbance on the landscape and helps classify fuel data assignments.
  • National Vegetation Classification – Allows opportunities to evaluate the vegetation classification and mapped products.
  • Fuel Vegetation Cover, Height, and Type – More accurately reflects pre-disturbance vegetation type, as well as pre-disturbance binned cover and type in order to apply the effects of disturbances on fuel to depict fuel model assignments to the capable year.
     

LF Remap Resources

LANDFIRE 2016 Remap Project Closeout Report

Vegetation dynamics models: a comprehensive set for natural resource assessment and planning in the U.S. 

Changing the mapping approach for fuels in disturbed areas - LANDFIRE introduces "Capable" Fuel - a summary of the new mapping process, called "capable" fuels.

LANDFIRE Capable Fuels - changes to the fuels assignment process for LF Remap - a technical description of the refinement to the LF Remap products now representing "capable" fuels.

LANDFIRE 2016 Remap and "Year Capable" Fuels 

LF Remap Image Processing

The New Age of LANDFIRE: LF 2016 Remap and the LF 2020 Update

LANDFIRE 2016 Remap: Improvements to the Reference Database

LANDFIRE Remap Prototype Mapping Effort: Developing a New Framework for Mapping Vegetation Classification, Change, and Structure - a narrative of the innovative methodologies in image processing and mapping used to create LF Remap LANDFIRE vegetation products

LF Remap - Utilization of Remotely Sensed Data to Classify Existing Vegetation Type and Structure to Support Strategic Planning and Tactical Response - characterizing vegetation type, cover, and height with Earth observation data enhances wildland fuel modeling.

Developing LF Remap by Production Unit - products are developed using a combination of legacy and new productions units.

LF 2020 data was archived and can be accessed on LANDFIRE AGOL or requested through the Help Desk.

The LF 2020 Update represents the second step in moving towards an annual update in which the disturbances from the year before are represented in current year products. LANDFIRE (LF) 2019L (Limited) was the first step towards this goal but contained limited disturbance information (events and fire program data only) for the years 2017-2019.

LF 2020 includes adjustments to vegetation and fuels in disturbed areas for disturbances recorded in 2017-2020. LF 2020 disturbance layers contain events, fire program data (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC), Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG)) and LF's remote sensing of landscape change (RSLC), which identifies spectral change in vegetation using automated algorithms and image analyst review. See the disturbance source information table.

LF 2020 replaces LF 2019L in terms of disturbances accounted for in vegetation and fuels product layers as it includes all disturbances in LF 2019L plus additional disturbances from 2017-2019 identified by LF's RSLC process and an additional year of full disturbance mapping (2020).

Both vegetation cover and height, as well as fuels, will be 2022 capable in disturbed areas. This means that in mapped disturbances, vegetation and fuels are "grown" to current (delivery) year conditions. Transition rulesets for vegetation account for disturbances from 2017-2020 (using LF 2016 Remap vegetation as an input), meaning that no vegetation disturbed prior to LF 2016 Remap will be transitioned from what was mapped at the time. Fuel updates utilize 2012–2020 disturbances because fuels transition rules are based on pre-disturbance fuel inputs, which could pre-date LF 2016 Remap.

There are important changes to ancillary data and classes in the LF 2020 Update, including:

A complete recalculation of topography based on the most recent 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) data and corrections to aspect that are crucial to fire behavior modeling
Use of the latest National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) 2019 data for roads and urban classes and a new separate product layer for roads designed for operational use
Removal of the developed ruderal classes and the designation of new burnable developed classes based on the Microsoft Building Footprint data and the Wildfire Risk to Communities value added layer
Removal of the recently disturbed classes, replaced with modeled vegetation
Adjustment of agricultural classes using the new 2020 cropland data layer (CDL) and transitioning federal agricultural lands to burnable fuels in non-irrigated areas

LF 2020 Update Products and Descriptions

The majority of LF 2020 products cover CONUS, AK, HI, and the U.S. Virgin Islands/Puerto Rico (USVI/PR)—no other insular area products will be produced other than the Operational Roads product layer for American Samoa and Guam. Available products can be seen in the table below.

LF 2020 Update Resources

Understanding LF 2020

The New Age of LANDFIRE: LF 2016 Remap and the LF 2020 Update

LF 2020 Update Reference

The LF Public Events Geodatabase is updated with LF releases. As LF moves toward an annual release covering the previous year's disturbances, timely annual submission of agency recorded events by November 30th will increase in importance.

Standards and technological abilities within all agencies at all levels change through time, which requires an extensive quality control effort and the ability to reconcile reporting and formatting of attributes from different sources. LF's Events Geodatabase is the first step in the disturbance mapping process and allows LF to identify disturbances that cannot be detected via multi-spectral remote sensing and confirm treatments or disturbances that were present on the Landsat imagery.

Submitted and collected events from 2017-2020 are included in the LF 2020 Public Events Geodatabase.

LF 2020 Update Disturbance

Disturbances for 2017-2020 submitted directly to LF or to national databases (Forest Service Activity Tracking System (FACTS) and National Fire Plan Operations and Reporting System (NFPORS)) by November 30th, 2020, are included in annual disturbance product layers for LF 2020. Fire program data (MTBS, BARC, RAVG) that became available during the production window are also included (see Disturbance Source Information above). Comprehensive RSLC detection methods were also used to locate additional disturbances not supplied by other programs or organizations and all disturbances were reviewed in detail by image analysts for the entire U.S.

Annual disturbance products produced for LF 2020 build off LF 2016 Remap procedures with some technical improvements, including the use of percentile image compositing and utilization of additional contextual and machine learning methods.

LF 2020 Update Vegetation

Vegetation products for LF 2020 pixels not mapped as disturbed by LF from 2017–2020 will not be different from LF 2016 Remap vegetation — there is NO CHANGE to these vegetation products with some exceptions: pixels labeled as "Recently Disturbed" in LF 2016 Remap have been replaced by modeled EVTs from LF 2016 Remap outputs; and "developed ruderal" classes have been replaced either by modeled EVTs from LF 2016 Remap outputs or new burnable developed classes based on building footprint densities.

Vegetation products for LF 2020 pixels mapped as disturbed by LF from 2017–2020 have been transitioned to estimate 2022 vegetation cover and height in the LF 2020 version using vegetation transition rulesets within the ST-Sim state and transition rule framework. These products will include capable vegetation, bringing the data to a 2022 effective condition in disturbed areas.

Disturbances from 2021 and 2022 are not included in LF 2020 disturbed vegetation transitions.

LF 2020 Update Fuel

The LF 2020 for Fuel represents the 2022 capable year. Improvements include a new set of burnable developed classes that represent areas with low densities of buildings. In addition, all non-irrigated federal agricultural lands are assigned to a burnable fuel model.

Pixels in LF 2020 Fuel products not mapped as disturbed by LF from 2012–2020 will be identical to LF 2016 Remap fuels — except for new fuel assignments for those pixels previously classed as Recently Disturbed and Developed Ruderal.

Pixels in LF 2020 Fuel products mapped as disturbed by LF from 2012–2020 have been transitioned to estimate conditions in 2022. These products will include capable fuels, bringing the data to a 2022 effective condition.

Disturbances from 2021 and 2022 are not included in LF 2020 Update disturbed fuel transitions.

LF 2020 Update Fire Regime

Fire regime map layers give users the ability to understand their landscape in relation to pre-European fire and vegetation conditions. The fire regime group classification is a combination of both the return interval and the percent of replacement fire.

LF 2020 Update Topographic

LF 2020 Elevation products, released February 2022, were created using the latest 1 arc-second Digital Elevation Models (DEM) data, part of the USGS 3DEP program. LF 2020 Elevation was then used to calculate LF 2020 Aspect, Slope Degree, and Slope Percent Rise.

LF 2020 Aspect was recalculated to better reflect true north, a correction from earlier LF topographic products.

LF 2020 Update Transportation

Typically, in LF's vegetation and fuels products, vegetation that is covering a road (i.e., tree canopy), is classed as vegetation, not a road. This methodology continues to be in effect for LF 2020 vegetation and fuels product layers to help account for canopy continuity and fire behavior in these areas. Roads were identified using NLCD 2019 Impervious Descriptor. All pixels for Primary and Secondary Roads were used. Tertiary roads were included where there was less than 75% tree canopy cover in NLCD 2016 USFS Tree Canopy Cover for CONUS.

A new addition to LF 2020 is an Operational Roads product layer. In wildland fire situations, it is important to know where all roads are located for access, potential fire lines, and evacuation; therefore, the Operational Roads product consists of all NLCD 2019 impervious surface roads categories (primary, secondary, tertiary, and thinned) for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii and select Insular Areas, without the tree cover adjustment. This new product is meant to overlay our other product layers for informational purposes when needed.

LF 2020 Update Buffer

LF 2020 data include a 90-kilometer buffer into Canada at the northern border of CONUS and into Mexico at the southern border of CONUS, utilizing vegetation type, cover, and height derived from North American Land Classification System (NALCMS) data along with aspect to assign vegetation and fuel product layers in these buffer areas. Although a coarse assessment, it provides a way to model fire ignition and spread across the U.S. border with fire behavior models. Though integrated with the U.S. products within the borders of the U.S., the 90km buffers were created using different processes and input data sets and do not account for disturbances.

In addition to the CONUS 90km buffer, LF 2020 AK also includes a 90km buffer along the eastern border into Canada. Though integrated with the AK products within the borders of the U.S., the LF 2020 AK buffer was created using different processes and input data sets and does not account for disturbances.

The LANDFIRE (LF) 2022 Update represents another step in moving towards an annual update.

This update is the first time in LANDFIRE history in which disturbances from the year before are represented in current year products.

LF 2022 includes adjustments to vegetation and fuels in disturbed areas for disturbances recorded in 2021 and 2022. LF 2022 disturbance layers contain comprehensive polygon treatment data (disturbance events) obtained from national and local sources and fire program data including:

• Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS)
• Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC)
• Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG)

Disturbances are also identified with LF's remote sensing of landscape change (RSLC), which identifies spectral change in vegetation using automated algorithms and image analyst review of the entire country.

Both vegetation cover and height, as well as fuels, will be 2023 capable in disturbed areas. This means that in mapped disturbances, vegetation and fuels represent current year conditions. Transition rulesets for vegetation account for disturbances from 2017 to 2022 since they were designed to use LF 2016 Remap vegetation data as inputs. Fuel updates utilize 2013–2022 disturbances because fuels transition rules encompass ten years of disturbance and can use pre-disturbance fuel inputs.

Important changes featured in the LF 2022 update include:

• In CONUS, Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) Ecological Systems classifications will remain the same as LF 2020, except in areas where agriculture or urban areas have changed. Note that LF 2020 EVT is the most recent version for AK, HI, and the Insular Areas
• LF 2022 contains the first application of the "zero to one" Time Since Disturbance (TSD) rules for vegetation height and cover transition rules
  • New rules for the "zero to one" TSD category were developed for surface fuel transitions and are designed to represent the effects of disturbance on fuels for the growing season immediately following the disturbance
• The years represented in Historical Disturbance (HDist) and Fuel Disturbance (FDist) are now the same

LF 2022 Update Products and Descriptions

Download Data

Product Description

The Fire Return Interval (FRI) product quantifies the average period between fires under the presumed historical fire regime. FRI is intended to describe one component of historical fire regime characteristics in the context of the broader historical time period represented by the LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings (BpS) product and BpS Model documentation.

At the release of LF 2016 Remap Fire Return Interval (FRI_ALLFIR) was included as an attribute in the Biophysical Settings (BPS) product. Then, in calendar year 2024, this product became a stand-alone product once again. 

Product Description

Slope represents the change of elevation over a specific area.

LF 2020 Update Slope Degree (SlpD) and Slope Percent Rise (SlpP) products are generated from 1 arc-second Digital Elevation Models (DEM) tiles (approximately 30 meter) downloaded November 9, 2021 from The National Map (TNM) Viewer (v2.0), part of the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) which provides the best available public domain raster elevation data of the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and insular areas.

See metadata by extent for specific details regarding coordinate system and projection information.

Note: LF 2020 topographic products are consistently calculated from true north, a correction from earlier topographic products where Aspect was calculated incorrectly. Users are advised to download the LF 2020 topographic products for CONUS, HI, AK, and PRVI to replace LF topographic products previously downloaded. We also advise that Landscape GeoTIFF (landscape) files created from earlier topographic products be re-created using the LF 2020 topographic products.

LF 2016 Remap and beyond includes a 90-kilometer buffer along the 1,500 miles of the eastern and southern borders AK shares with Canada. Then with the LF 2020 update, and future updates, for the Conterminous United States (CONUS) a 90-kilometer buffer into Mexico is also included. 

Product Description

Elevation represents land height, in meters, above mean sea level.

LF 2020 Update Elevation products were created using the 1 arc-second Digital Elevation Models (DEM) tiles (approximately 30 meter) downloaded November 9, 2021 from The National Map (TNM) Viewer (v2.0), part of the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) which provides the best available public domain raster elevation data of the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and insular areas.

See metadata by extent for specific details regarding coordinate system and projection information.

Note: LF 2020 topographic products are consistently calculated from true north, a correction from earlier topographic products where Aspect was calculated incorrectly. Users are advised to download the LF 2020 topographic products for CONUS, HI, AK, and PRVI to replace any LF topographic products previously downloaded. We also advise that Landscape GeoTIFF (landscape) files created from earlier topographic products be re-created using the LF 2020 topographic products.

LF 2016 Remap and beyond includes a 90-kilometer buffer along the 1,500 miles of the eastern and southern borders AK shares with Canada. Then with the LF 2020 update, and future updates, for the Conterminous United States (CONUS) a 90-kilometer buffer into Mexico is also included.