3D Fuels mapping with FastFuels: Expanding the toolbox for forest and fire managers

Photo Credit

Figure from Marcozzi et al., 2025

Voxelized FastFuels trees data for a 200 meter square area. Distinct colors indicate individual trees.

Managers need good maps to make good decisions, particularly at the project level, where fine details matter to real world implementation. FastFuels is a data-on-demand mapping platform that leverages multiple data sources to provide high fidelity forest and fuel data for a typical user-specified area within minutes. 3D data can be used with next generation fire models, supporting forest management, fuel treatment planning, prescribed fire planning, and risk assessment and mitigation efforts.

FastFuels provides rapid, detailed 3D data at the project scale (typically up to a few thousand acres) that can be used in advanced models such as the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and QUIC-FIRE. By linking high fidelity data and next generation fire models, FastFuels expands the toolbox for analysis and decisions around forestry, fuels and fire management.

FastFuels makes it easy to get very detailed forest inventory and fuels data for a selected area, enabling managers to understand their management units and explore management alternatives in new ways. Researchers can use FastFuels to compare outcomes between fire models, improving the underlying science. Leveraging both USGS 3DEP LiDAR, NAIP imagery and other sources, FastFuels data is free to the user, saving money to the Forest Service and other agencies each time the data is used. FastFuels' data can accelerate field operations, reduce field data collection costs, and enable more detailed analysis regarding fuel management decisions and prescribed burn planning. 

The FastFuels team spans Forest Service R&D and includes partners from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Los Alamos National Laboratory, DoW SERPD/ESTCP program, New Mexico Consortium, and UC San Diego. The team works closely with researchers, academic and agency partners around the country to continue refining the data and expanding applications that have emerged from this collaboration. Reach out to the contacts below for additional information or if you are interested in collaborating with the FastFuels team.