The scientific foundation of the LANDFIRE Prototype Project [Chapter 3]

Abstract

The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Prototype Project, or LANDFIRE Prototype Project, originated from a recent mapping project that developed a set of coarse-scale spatial data layers for wildland fire management describing fire hazard and ecological status for the conterminous United States (Hardy and others 2001; Schmidt and others 2002; www. fs.fed.us/fire/fuelman). Schmidt and others (2002) used linear succession transition pathways to estimate vegetation conditions that occurred on historical landscapes represented by combinations of land cover types and structural stages from existing vegetation databases. The comparison of current landscape conditions with these historical successional sequences provided a means for assessing departure and for creating an index, called Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC), that reflects the magnitude of departure (see Hann 2004).

Parent Publication

• The LANDFIRE Prototype Project: nationally consistent and locally relevant geospatial data for wildland fire management

Citation

Keane, Robert E.; Rollins, Matthew. 2006. The scientific foundation of the LANDFIRE Prototype Project [Chapter 3]. In: Rollins, Matthew G.; Frame, Christine K., tech. eds. 2006. The LANDFIRE Prototype Project: nationally consistent and locally relevant geospatial data for wildland fire management Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-175. Fort Collins: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 45-68.