LANDFIRE

LANDFIRE is an interagency data program for wildland fire management, led by the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior.¹ The project team includes the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and The Nature Conservancy.¹ Two Forest Service units, the Rocky Mountain Research Station and Forest Inventory and Analysis, also take part, with a KBR technical support contract.¹ The program began out of concern about the number, severity and size of wildland fires, and the need for consistent national vegetation data.¹

It produces more than 25 map layers, a reference database and a set of vegetation models, describing the current and historical state of vegetation, fuel, fire regimes and disturbance.¹ The vegetation layers distinguish more than 900 vegetation types.¹ The fuel layers include fire behaviour fuel models, standard classes that describe the surface fuel a fire would burn through, in both the 13 Anderson and the 40 Scott and Burgan sets.^1,3 Canopy layers give forest canopy cover, height, base height and bulk density.³ Historic fire regime layers estimate how often and how severely places burned before European settlement, and topographic layers describe the terrain.² Disturbance layers classify disturbance events year by year. They are built from data that agencies submit and from satellite change detection checked by analysts.^2,4

The maps cover the conterminous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, and other insular areas.² Pixels are 30 metres.^2,7 LANDFIRE advises against reading single pixels or small groups of them.^2,7 The products are meant for planning over large landscapes, such as significant parts of a state.² They are not intended to replace local products.^2,7

LANDFIRE releases two kinds of version: a base map, a full remapping from satellite imagery and field plots, such as the LF 2016 Remap, and updates that bring the base map current for disturbance and regrowth.² LANDFIRE aims to release an update every year, current to the previous year.⁴ LF 2025 accounts for disturbances through fiscal year 2025 and is released during 2026 region by region.⁴ It starts with the Southwest in spring and ends in the fall with the full conterminous extent, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.⁴ In LF 2025 the fuel layers are updated for ten years of disturbance.⁴ Seasonally adjusted versions of the 40 fuel models are released several times a year, and from LF 2025 they are made from Harmonized Landsat Sentinel imagery.^2,4

Fire behaviour and fire effects models such as FARSITE and FlamMap read a Landscape GeoTIFF: one file with eight bands for elevation, slope, aspect, fuel model, canopy cover, canopy height, canopy base height and canopy bulk density.⁵ It replaced the older .LCP landscape format in 2024.⁵ Users can also change LANDFIRE's fuel rules for their area with the LANDFIRE Total Fuel Change Tool to make customised fuel layers.³

The LANDFIRE Map Viewer cuts out an area of interest for download and asks for an email address.^2,5 Whole regions can be downloaded at full extent.² The LANDFIRE Product Service is a REST API, a web address that programs call.^2,6 A request names the layers and the area, by longitude and latitude or by map zone, with an email address.⁶ It can also set the projection and a coarser resolution.⁶ LANDFIRE also offers image and WCS/WMS map services and ArcGIS Online layers.²

Someone modelling wildfire for a large forest or watershed would download the landscape file for the area and run a spread model over it with local weather.⁵ The version year matters, since fires and fuel treatments after it are not in the map.⁴ LANDFIRE describes its layers as wall-to-wall reference data, not a replacement for local products.^2,7