Description

LANDFIRE produces a comprehensive, consistent, scientifically based suite of spatial layers and databases for the entire United States and territories. In 2009 the first wall to wall National data set was delivered for the fifty United States.  Since this accomplishment, LANDFIRE has released a number of updates to the base data with the most recent release of the LANDFIRE 2012 data set. Each update has accounted for changes to vegetated landscapes due to disturbances (fire, human, weather, insects, and disease). Characteristics of and changes to the vegetated landscape are translated directly into LANDFIRE products used for fire behavior, fire effects, and fire regime modeling. This presentation will outline the chronology of processes and datasets used to implement the various updates to LANDFIRE vegetation products including yearly disturbance mapping, creation of vegetation transition databases and the transition modeling process, and mapping of land change. In addition, vegetation change resulting from these updates manifests itself in updated fire behavior products, including maps portraying fire behavior fuel models and canopy characteristics. They also manifest themselves in updated fire regime products including maps portraying succession class and vegetation departure and condition class.