Fire Behavior Assessment Team: pre- and post-fire tree data, raw and processed

This data publication contains the raw and processed tree/canopy fuels data pre- and post-fire collected by the Fire Behavior Assessment Team (FBAT) on wildland fires in the United States from 2003-2017. Logistics (proximity to instrumentation/crew members), funding, fire activity, and monitoring questions influenced the geographic regions and fires where sampling was attempted, for instance, fuel treatments recorded in the Forest Service Activity Tracking System (FACTS), as well as tree mortality areas, were each targets for FBAT sampling in the past. FBAT is an interagency group of primarily Forest Service employees with both monitoring and fireline qualifications which collects pre- and post-fire fuels and tree data along with fire behavior measurements on wildland fires. Data include raw tree data (measurements collected from the field), processed data (stand characteristics and canopy fuels variables) computed using the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), and key documents pertaining to the methods so that others could replicate or modify data post-processing. The location (GPS) data, surface fuels and fire behavior data are archived separately.
These data are collected by the FBAT team to provide measures of pre-fire fuels/vegetation, active fire behavior (with sensors in the fire), and post-fire fuels/vegetation conditions during wildfires and prescribed fires for improving understanding and tools related to fire behavior and fire effects.
For more information about FBAT data see: https://www.fs.usda.gov/adaptivemanagement/projects_main_fbat.php. These data were published on 10/03/2018. On 12/03/2020 this data publication was updated to include a supplemental file that provides a diagram of the FBAT plot layout and a brief list of key method changes throughout the years FBAT has taken data to present (2020). On 01/30/2024, we have added ACCDB files (updated Access format) for all MDB files. A few minor metadata updates were also made at this time, which included updating all fs.fed.us URLs.