The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) burned area boundaries dataset contains the extent polygons of the burned areas of all currently completed MTBS fires for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Below NBR stands for "Normalized Burn Ratio", while dNBR stands for "delta NBR", or "PreFire NBR - PostFire NBR". Notes on the threshold values: dNBR is used when available, but sometimes NBR must be used. NBR and dNBR, in this situation, have an inverse relationship Therefore, thresholds are determined based both on the type of incoming data and the range of the data The 9999 and -9999 values are fill values representing the cases when an analyst did not use a threshold (for example, a low severity incident would not warrant the use of a high severity threshold). In some cases values of 999 and -999 were entered (instead of 9999 and -9999). Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) is an interagency program whose goal is to consistently map the burn severity and extent of large fires across all lands of the United States from 1984 to present. This includes all fires 1000 acres or greater in the western United States and 500 acres or greater in the eastern Unites States. The extent of coverage includes the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The program is conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) and the USDA Forest Service Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC). MTBS was first enacted in 2005, primarily to meet the information needs of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC). The primary objective at that time was to provide data to the WFLC for monitoring the effectiveness of the ten-year National Fire Plan. The scope of the program has grown since inception and provides data to a wide range of users. These include national policy-makers such as WFLC and others who are focused on implementing and monitoring national fire management strategies; field management units such as national forests, parks and other federal and tribal lands that benefit from the availability of GIS-ready maps and data; other federal land cover mapping programs such as LANDFIRE which utilizes burn severity data in their own efforts; and academic and agency research entities interested in fire severity data over significant geographic and temporal extents. MTBS data are freely available to the public and are generated by leveraging other national programs including the Landsat satellite program, jointly developed and managed by the USGS and NASA. Landsat data are analyzed through a standardized and consistent methodology, generating products at a 30 meter resolution dating back to 1984. One of the greatest strengths of the program is the consistency of the data products which would be impossible without the historic Landsat archive, the largest in the world. You can visit the MTBS Project Website for more information. You can also visit the MTBS Data Explorer to learn more and interact with the data.

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity MTBS project assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (includes wildfire, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period between 1984 and the current MTBS release. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector polygon of the _location of all currently inventoried and mappable MTBS fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Map Service Feature Layer

The burn severity mosaics consist of thematic raster images of MTBS burn severity classes for all currently completed MTBS fires for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Mosaicked burn severity images are compiled annually for each year by US State and the continental United States. Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) is an interagency program whose goal is to consistently map the burn severity and extent of large fires across all lands of the United States from 1984 to present. This includes all fires 1000 acres or greater in the western United States and 500 acres or greater in the eastern Unites States. The extent of coverage includes the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The program is conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) and the USDA Forest Service Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC). MTBS was first enacted in 2005, primarily to meet the information needs of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC). The primary objective at that time was to provide data to the WFLC for monitoring the effectiveness of the ten-year National Fire Plan. The scope of the program has grown since inception and provides data to a wide range of users. These include national policy-makers such as WFLC and others who are focused on implementing and monitoring national fire management strategies; field management units such as national forests, parks and other federal and tribal lands that benefit from the availability of GIS-ready maps and data; other federal land cover mapping programs such as LANDFIRE which utilizes burn severity data in their own efforts; and academic and agency research entities interested in fire severity data over significant geographic and temporal extents. MTBS data are freely available to the public and are generated by leveraging other national programs including the Landsat satellite program, jointly developed and managed by the USGS and NASA. Landsat data are analyzed through a standardized and consistent methodology, generating products at a 30 meter resolution dating back to 1984. One of the greatest strengths of the program is the consistency of the data products which would be impossible without the historic Landsat archive, the largest in the world. You can visit the MTBS Project Website for more information. You can also visit the MTBS Data Explorer to learn more and interact with the data.

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period 1984 and beyond. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a thematic raster image of MTBS burn severity classes for all inventoried fires occurring in CONUS. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available, or fires were not discernable from available imagery.

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity MTBS project assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (includes wildfire, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period of 1984 through 2018. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector point of the location of all currently inventoried and mappable fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and 2018 for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The point location represents the geographic centroid for the _BURN_AREA_BOUNDARY polygon(s) associated with each fire. Map Service Feature Layer

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.�Map ServicesThis record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity MTBS project assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (includes wildfire, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period between 1984 and the current MTBS release. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector polygon of the location of all currently inventoried and mappable MTBS fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Map Service Feature Layer

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

Area burned is an important variable for measuring wildfire activity. In the western United States (US), the timing and magnitude of area burned can be associated with meteorological and human activity to find the drivers of wildfire activity, but this type of research is dependent on the spatial and temporal resolution of available wildfire datasets. The Western US MTBS-Interagency (WUMI2) database is a dataset of wildfire events in the western United States (US) larger than 1 km2 for 1984 to 2020. WUMI2 includes the important Monitoring Trends in Burned Severity (MTBS) project (Eidenshink et al., 2007)—a Landsat satellite-based dataset of large fires (>4.04 km2)—and adds small (>1 to 4.04 km2) and large fires from government agency databases, including from the Fire Program Analysis (FPA) fire-occurrence database (Short et al., 2022). We performed extensive quality control to merge the datasets together and remove errors. The result is a western US-wide dataset with accurate fire frequency, timing, and area burned that can be used for analyses and modeling of wildfire activity. The current version of this data is WUMI2. The first iteration of the dataset (WUMI1) was published and described in Juang et al. (2022). Methods Version WUMI2 Updated August 1, 2024: Our WUMI2 fire database consists of 21,693 western US fire events from 1984 through 2020. A text file (west_US_fires_1984-2020_WUMI2.txt) provides a list of each fire event, including the fire’s name, discovery date, point location, total area burned, and forested area burned (see the corresponding readme.txt file for column labels). We also include NetCDF files of the 1-km map of forest fractional coverage (forest_type_frac.nc) and the 1-km maps of monthly burned area over 1984–2020 (burnarea_1984-2020_WUMI2.nc). Fires included in this database are from the Monitoring Trends in Burned Severity Product (MTBS) (Eidenshink et al., 2007), the Fire Program Analysis fire-occurrence database (FPA FOD 6th edition) of interagency fires (Short, 2022), and interagency fires from local databases (CalFire, ST/C&L, TRIBE), and interagency fires from government agency databases (BIA, BLM, BOR, DOD, DOE, NPS, FWS, FS, NPS). More information on methodology can be found in the Supporting Information in Juang et al. (2022). In addition to this methodology, the Fire Program Analysis fire-occurrence database (FPA FOD 6th edition) (Short, 2022) replaces our WUMI1 (Juang et al. (2022)) methodology for the government interagency fires from 1992-2020 for version WUMI2. As in WUMI1, we performed extensive quality control across all included datasets to remove errors in the various wildfire databases and merge the datasets together. Version WUMI1 (older) Updated August 16, 2021: Our WUMI1 fire database consists of 18,368 western US fire events from 1984 through 2019. A text file (west_US_fires_1984_2019.txt) provides a list of each fire event, including the fire’s name, discovery date, point location, total area burned, and forested area burned (see the corresponding readme.txt file for column labels). We also include NetCDF files of the 1-km map of forest fractional coverage (forest_type_frac.nc) and the 1-km maps of monthly burned area over 1984–2019 (burnarea_1984_2019.nc). Fires included in this database from the Monitoring Trends in Burned Severity Product (MTBS), fires from a state database (CalFire), fires from government interagency databases (BIA, BLM, BOR, NPS, FWS, FS). More information on methodology can be found in the Supporting Information in Juang et al. (2022).

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (including wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico from the beginning of the Landsat Thematic Mapper archive to the present. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector polygon shapefile of the location of all currently inventoried fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Please visit https://mtbs.gov/announcements to determine the current release. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available or fires were not discernable from available imagery.

This map layer is a thematic raster image of MTBS burn severity classes for all inventoried fires occurring in CONUS during calendar year 2022 that do not meet standard MTBS size criteria. These data are published to augment the data that are available from the MTBS program. This product was produced using the methods of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Program (MTBS), however these fires do not meet the size criteria for a standard MTBS assessment. The MTBS Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period 1984 and beyond. MTBS typically maps fires using an initial assessment (immediately after the fire) or an extended assessment (peak of green the season after the fire) for low-biomass and high-biomass fires respectively. Refer to MTBS.gov for more information on MTBS methods and criteria. Standard MTBS mappings must meet the size criteria of at least 500 acres for the eastern states and territories and 1,000 acres for the western states and territories to be eligible for mapping. Undersized MTBS fires are those fires that do not meet the standard MTBS size criteria but are otherwise mapped using standard MTBS methodologies.

Dataset

This dataset was created by Dave Williams Data

Contents

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity of individual fires; Landsat remote sensing of land cover; Landscape Change Monitoring System maps of annual forest cover. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Zuspan, E.A., M. Reilly, and E. Lee. Long-Term Patterns of Post-Fire Harvest Diverge Among Ownerships in the Pacific West, U.S.A.. Environmental Research Letters. IOP Publishing LIMITED, Bristol, UK, 19(12): 124075, (2024).

This map layer is a vector polygon shapefile of the perimeters of all currently inventoried fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and 2022 that do not meet standard MTBS size criteria. These data are published to augment the data that are available from the MTBS program. This product was produced using the methods of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Program (MTBS); however, these fires do not meet the size criteria for a standard MTBS assessment. The MTBS Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period 1984 and beyond. MTBS typically maps fires using an initial assessment (immediately after the fire) or an extended assessment (peak of green the season after the fire) for low-biomass and high-biomass fires respectively. Refer to MTBS.gov for more information on MTBS methods and criteria. Standard MTBS mappings must meet the size criteria of at least 500 acres for the eastern states and territories and 1,000 acres for the western states and territories to be eligible for mapping. Undersized MTBS fires are those fires that do not meet the standard MTBS size criteria but are otherwise mapped using standard MTBS methodologies.

This map layer is a thematic raster image of MTBS burn severity classes for all inventoried fires occurring in CONUS during calendar year 2008 that do not meet standard MTBS size criteria. These data are published to augment the data that are available from the MTBS program. This product was produced using the methods of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Program (MTBS), however these fires do not meet the size criteria for a standard MTBS assessment. The MTBS Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period 1984 and beyond. MTBS typically maps fires using an initial assessment (immediately after the fire) or an extended assessment (peak of green the season after the fire) for low-biomass and high-biomass fires respectively. Refer to MTBS.gov for more information on MTBS methods and criteria. Standard MTBS mappings must meet the size criteria of at least 500 acres for the eastern states and territories and 1,000 acres for the western states and territories to be eligible for mapping. Undersized MTBS fires are those fires that do not meet the standard MTBS size criteria but are otherwise mapped using standard MTBS methodologies.

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.This record was taken from the USDA Enterprise Data Inventory that feeds into the https://data.gov catalog. Data for this record includes the following resources: ISO-19139 metadata ArcGIS Hub Dataset ArcGIS GeoService For complete information, please visit https://data.gov.

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (includes wildfire, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico for the period of 1984 through 2010. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector point shapefile of the location of all currently inventoried and mappable MTBS fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and 2010 for the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

Burn severity layers are thematic images depicting severity as unburned to low, low, moderate, high, and increased greenness (increased post-fire vegetation response). The layer may also have a sixth class representing a mask for clouds, shadows, large water bodies, or other features on the landscape that erroneously affect the severity classification. This data has been prepared as part of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project. Due to the lack of comprehensive fire reporting information and quality Landsat imagery, burn severity for all targeted MTBS fires are not available. Additionally, the availability of burn severity data for fires occurring in the current and previous calendar year is variable since these data are currently in production and released on an intermittent basis by the MTBS project.