Broad-scale alterations of historical fire regimes and vegetation
dynamics have occurred in many landscapes in the U.S. through the combined
influence of land management practices, fire exclusion, ungulate herbivory,
insect and disease outbreaks, climate change, and invasion of non-native plant
species. The LANDFIRE Project produces maps of historical fire regimes and
vegetation conditions using the disturbance dynamics model VDDT. The LANDFIRE
Project also produces maps of current vegetation and measurements of current
vegetation departure from simulated historical reference conditions. These maps
support fire and landscape management planning outlined in the goals of the
National Fire Plan, Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, and the Healthy
Forests Restoration Act.Data Summary:The Fire Regime Groups layer characterizes
the presumed historical fire regimes within landscapes based on interactions
between vegetation dynamics, fire spread, fire effects, and spatial context
(Hann and others 2004). Fire regime group definitions have been altered from
previous applications (Hann & Bunnell 2001; Schmidt and others 2002;
Wildland Fire Communicator's Guide) to best approximate the definitions outlined
in the Interagency FRCC Guidebook (Hann and others 2004). These definitions were
refined to create discrete, mutually exclusive criteria. This layer is created
by linking the BpS Group attribute in the BpS layer with the Refresh Model
Tracker (RMT) data and assigning the Fire Regime Group attribute. This
geospatial product should display a reasonable approximation of Fire Regime
Group, as documented in the Refresh Model Tracker.The Historical Fire Regime
Groups data layer categorizes simulated mean fire return intervals and fire
severities into five fire regimes defined in the Interagency Fire Regime
Condition Class Guidebook (Hann et al. 2004). The classes are defined as
follows:Fire Regime I: 0 to 35 year frequency, low to mixed severityFire Regime
II: 0 to 35 year frequency, replacement severityFire Regime III: 35 to 200 year
frequency, low to mixed severityFire Regime IV: 35 to 200 year frequency,
replacement severityFire Regime V: 200+ year frequency, any severityAdditional
data layer values were included to represent Water (111), Snow / Ice (112),
Barren (131), and Sparsely Vegetated (132). Vegetated areas that never burned
during the simulations were included in the category "Indeterminate Fire Regime
Characteristics" (133); these vegetation types either had no defined fire
behavior or had extremely low probabilities of fire ignition.Hann, W.. A.
Shlisky, D. Havlina, K. Schon, S. Barrett, T. DeMeo, K. Pohl, J. Menakis, D.
Hamilton, J. Jones, and M. Levesque. 2004. Interagency Fire Regime Condition
Class Guidebook. Interagency and The Nature Conservancy fire regime condition
class website. USDA Forest Service, US Department of the Interior, The Nature
Conservancy, and Systems for Environmental Management. www.frcc.gov