Building loss and rebuilding within wildfire perimeters of the conterminous United States (2000-2013)

This data publication contains both tabular and vector point spatial data showing building location and outcomes for wildfires that destroyed buildings between 2000 and 2013 in the conterminous United States. Building destruction, subsequent rebuilding, and new construction within the fire perimeters are shown as points. Older fires show rebuilding and new for a longer time-span since fire.
Over the past 30 years, the cost of wildfire suppression and homes lost to wildfire in the U.S. have increased dramatically, driven in part by the expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where buildings and wildland vegetation meet. In response, the wildfire management community has devoted substantial effort to better understand where buildings and vegetation co-occur, and to establish outreach programs to reduce wildfire damage to homes. A spatially explicit record of buildings over time in relation to wildfires provides new insight for research and management, including a greater understanding of where buildings are located in relation to wildfires, the WUI, wildfire outreach programs, and where buildings are lost to wildfires.
For more information about this study and these data, see Kramer et al. (2018) and Alexandre et al. (2015).