Spatial dataset of probabilistic wildfire risk components for the conterminous United States: 1st edition

National burn probability (BP) and conditional fire intensity level (FIL) data were generated for the conterminous United States (US) using a geospatial Fire Simulation (FSim) system developed by the US Forest Service Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory to estimate probabilistic components of wildfire risk (Finney et al. [2011]). The FSim system includes modules for weather generation, wildfire occurrence, fire growth, and fire suppression. FSim is designed to simulate the occurrence and growth of wildfires under tens of thousands of hypothetical contemporary fire seasons in order to estimate the probability of a given area (i.e., pixel) burning under current landscape conditions and fire management practices. The data presented here represent modeled BP and FIL for the conterminous US at a 270-meter grid spatial resolution. The six FILs correspond to flame-length classes as follows: FIL1 = < 2 feet (ft); FIL2 = 2 < 4 ft.; FIL3 = 4 < 6 ft.; FIL4 = 6 < 8 ft.; FIL5 = 8 < 12 ft.; FIL6 = 12+ ft. Because they indicate conditional probabilities (i.e., representing the likelihood of burning at a certain intensity level, given that a fire occurs), the FIL*_20160830 data must be used in conjunction with the BP_20160830 data for risk assessment.
National-scale assessment of wildfire risk offers a consistent means of understanding and comparing threats to valued resources and predicting and prioritizing investments in management activities that mitigate those risks. We used a simulation system to estimate the probabilistic components of wildfire risk for 128 distinct regions of contemporary wildfire activity (pyromes) across the conterminous US (CONUS). The system, called FSim, consists of modules for weather generation, and for modeling of large-fire occurrence, growth, and suppression. FSim is designed to simulate the occurrence and growth of fires under tens of thousands of hypothetical contemporary fire seasons in order to estimate burn probabilities and conditional flame lengths at multiple spatial scales, given current landscape conditions and fire management policies. These outputs have been generated for the CONUS to support a number of national planning and risk assessment efforts.
Original metadata date was 11/30/2016. Minor metadata updates were made on 06/30/17 and 08/15/2017. This edition of these data are available as a map service: https://apps.fs.usda.gov/fsgisx01/rest/services/RDW_Wildfire/ProbabilisticWildfireRisk/MapServer. ** NOTE: On 03/23/2020 a second edition of these data became available (Short et al. 2020; https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2016-0034-2) and we recommend the use of this newer edition. It is based on circa 2014 landscape data, which were the most current LANDFIRE products available at the time of production. It is also expanded to include Alaska and Hawaii at 270-meter resolution.