2011 Texas Tanglewood fire: post-fire database

This data publication contains data collected and derived as part of a joint effort conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS) to assess the 2011 Texas Tanglewood Fire (Tanglewood Fire). NIST and the USFS participated in the effort as part of the NIST/USFS Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Exposure Data Collection and Modeling Project (Butry et al. 2011). This data publication contains information on primary structures (e.g., residential homes), secondary structures (e.g., detached garages and fences), fire affected vegetation, fire progression, defensive actions and other property and landscape information pertaining to a post-fire assessment of the Tanglewood Fire. Additionally, this data package contains numerous post-fire images of the area affected by the Tanglewood Fire as well as active-fire images recorded by witnesses during the event. The Tanglewood Fire started on February 27, 2011 south of Amarillo, Texas in the Timber Creek Canyon Community south of Lake Tanglewood. NIST began gathering electronic data for the incident within 6 hours of the Tanglewood Fire. NIST and TFS integrated a field data collection team into the Incident Command System (ICS) within 48 hours to conduct the post-fire assessment. The deployment also worked in conjunction with state and local damage assessment efforts. The results of the data collection effort and subsequent office data processing are presented in this data package.
The objective of the WUI Fire Exposure Data Collection and Modeling Project (Butry et al. 2011) is to develop the measurement science needed to mitigate the effects of WUI fires by providing technical guidance on building components, landscaping elements, and community designs that resist ignition and limit the spread of WUI fires. The overall vision of the project is to address structure and community vulnerabilities to WUI fires through the development of fire-resistant design and advanced materials, based on reliable post-fire data and promoted through incorporation into codes, standards and best practices. Post-fire analysis of WUI fires, such as presented in this data package, provides the knowledge to focus experiments and modeling on critical vulnerabilities of structure, and landscape design and materials. Standard data collection methodologies will also help generate reliable post-fire data.
Two reports provide additional information on the overall Tanglewood Fire Post-Fire Assessment. The 2011 Wildland Urban Interface Amarillo Fires Report #2 - Assessment of Fire Behavior and WUI Measurement Science (Maranghides and McNamara, 2016) provides the most detailed information on the Tanglewood Fire Assessment. Initial Reconnaissance of the 2011 Wildland-Urban Interface Fires in Amarillo, Texas (Maranghides et al. 2011) provides an overview of the deployment procedures and initial assessment results. A description of each feature class, table and relationship class present in this geodatabase can be found in \Supplements\DatabaseDescription.pdf. A United States Forest Service ArcGIS Online interactive website has also been developed to describe observations associated with the 2011 Tanglewood Fire Post-Fire Assessment (McNamara et al. 2019). These data were originally published on 06/04/2019. Since publication, updates have been made to certain active-fire images taken of the 2011 Texas Tanglewood Fire in the Timber Creek Canyon by a resident of the community. As of 02/13/2020 these few updated images are now only available through the United States Forest Service ArcGIS Online interactive website (McNamara et al. 2019), which is in the process of being made public. In the meantime, interested users can access this website through an ArcGIS Online private group by contacting Derek McNamara at the contact information provided.