Application Projects

In order to refine and test LANDFIRE data in real-world situations, several landscape-scale, multi-partner application projects have been selected across the United States.  Application Projects will provide feedback to the LANDFIRE team on usefulness and accuracy of its products to landscape-level applications, and will form a foundation for testing the utility of LANDFIRE data for monitoring ground-based accomplishments at landscape scales through time. The products tested by Application Projects include reference models and biophysical settings, existing vegetation, and historical fire regime maps.

Nine regional projects have been selected:

• Central Washington Project, Washington
• Upper Deschutes Basin, Oregon
• Wassuk Range, Nevada
• Loess Hills, Iowa
• Muskrat Lakes/Two Hearted River, Michigan
• Bayou Ranger District, Arkansas
• Onslow Bight, North Carolina (click here to read more)
• Wekiva-Ocala-Okefenokee areas, Florida and Georgia
• Southwest Grasslands and Savannas, New Mexico

Selection criteria included the need to represent geographic and ecological diversity across the U.S., degree of partner engagement, and potential for comprehensive, landscape-level data to support mutual partner objectives. Six of these sites are also enrolled in the U.S. Fire Learning Network, and we expect that LANDFIRE data and models will be used by many other Network sites. The nine projects have been targeted in six modeling zones.

General Approach
Managers and partners at each of the Application Projects will use reference models and existing data to map Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) and document similarities and differences between local and LANDFIRE data. Application Projects will implement a three-year methodology.

In the first year, the Conservancy and its partners will compile existing local spatial data (i.e., biophysical settings, existing vegetation structure and composition, past fuel treatment locations) and reference models for each of the landscapes. In the second, data will be used to map FRCC and compare local results to the LANDFIRE Rapid Assessment data. Results will be presented at modeling workshops and other regional conferences. In the third year, local spatial data and models will be compared to finer resolution LANDFIRE data.

Over the long-term, Application Project data will be updated as fuels treatments are implemented, monitored for changes in FRCC, and used as demonstrations of the utility of LANDFIRE data for diverse, real-world, landscape-level applications.

More data applications

In addition to TNC Application Project sites, LANDFIRE data is being used in the field for a variety of projects:

• Implementation of mid-scale fire regime condition class mapping

by Louis Provencher, Jeff Campbell and Jan Nachlinger (June 2008).

Abstract: We used mid-scale Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) mapping to provide Hawthorne Army Depot in the Mount Grant area of Nevada, USA, with data layers to plan fuels restoration projects to meet resource management goals. FRCC mapping computes an index of the departure of existing conditions from the natural range of variability, and consists of five primary steps: (1) mapping the Potential NaturalVegetation Types (PNVT) based on interpretation of a soil survey; (2) refining PNVTs based on additional information; (3) modelling the natural range of variability (NRV) per PNVT; (4) using field verification, calculation and mapping of departure of current distribution of structural vegetation classes interpreted by remote sensing (IKONOS 4-m resolution satellite imagery) from the NRV; and (5) mapping structural vegetation classes that differ from reference conditions. Pinyon–juniper and mountain mahogany woodlands were found within the NRV, whereas departure increased from moderate for low and big sagebrush PNVTs and mixed desert shrub to
high for riparian mountain meadow. Several PNVTs showed departures that were close to FRCC class limits. The common recommendation to reach the NRV was to decrease the percentage of late-development closed and cheatgrass-dominant classes, thus increasing the percentage of early and mid-development classes. Click on title or here for full text.

• Read a Fire Learning Network success story about a project Louis Provencher, Nevada's Director of Conservation Ecology, spearheaded. Louis et al. used LANDFIRE FRCC data and the FRCC Mapping Tool to help complete a Conservation Action Plan for a USFS project area in Nevada--the Schell Creek Range. The story is a broad, non-technical overview of the process they used.
• Louis also played a leading role in developing a series of reference condition models that served as a foundation for the FRCC calculations for the Great Basin, Mojave Desert, Utah High Plateau and Columbia Plateau ecoregions. As soon as the LANDFIRE FRCC and related data became available in August 2007 he began using it, as well as related software tools, in a variety of projects.

• Read application stories posted on LANDFIRE.gov regarding wildland fire risk assessment, wildland fire incident management and fuels program prioitization and planning.
• Read the two-page update from LANDFIRE.gov titled "How Can I Use LANDFIRE?"

This page was last updated 25 June 2008.