A spatial database of wildfires in the United States, 1992-2011
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Abstract. The statistical analysis of wildfire activity is a critical component of national wildfire planning, operations, and research in the United States (US). However, there are multiple federal, state, and local entities with wildfire protection and reporting responsibilities in the US, and no single, unified system of wildfire record keeping exists. To conduct even the most rudimentary interagency analyses of wildfire numbers and area burned from the authoritative systems of record, one must harvest records from dozens of disparate databases with inconsistent information content. The onus is then on the user to check for and purge redundant records of the same fire (i.e., multijurisdictional incidents with responses reported by several agencies or departments) after pooling data from different sources. Here we describe our efforts to acquire, standardize, error-check, compile, scrub, and evaluate the completeness of US federal, state, and local wildfire records from 1992–2011 for the national, interagency Fire Program Analysis (FPA) application. The resulting FPA Fire-Occurrence Database (FPA FOD) includes nearly 1.6 million records from the 20 yr period, with values for at least the following core data elements: location, at least as precise as a Public Land Survey System section (2.6 km2 grid), discovery date, and final fire size. The FPA FOD is publicly available from the Research Data Archive of the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (doi:10.2737/RDS-2013-0009). While necessarily incomplete in some aspects, the database is intended to facilitate fairly high-resolution geospatial analysis of US wildfire activity over the past two decades, based on available information from the authoritative systems of record.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Within the US there are detailed data on the location, date and ignition source for most fires.
“Within the US there are detailed data on the location, date and ignition source for most fires (Short, 2014).”
From Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers (2020) · cites this paper as Short, 2014
The Abstract and §2.1 (pages not provided) describe a US wildfire database for 1992–2011 with location and discovery date for nearly 1.6 million records; §2.2.1 describes standardized fire-cause codes. But cause was not required for inclusion, and §4 notes substantial gaps in non-federal records. The paper therefore does not establish that all three details are available for most US fires. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredInter-annual variations in mean US fire weather season length were significantly correlated with variation in annual burned area reported by the US National Interagency Fire Center over 1979-2013 and 1992-2013 (ρ=0.679 and 0.683, P<0.001).
“Inter-annual variations in mean US fire weather season length were significantly correlated with variation in annual burned area reported by the US National Interagency Fire Center44 over the full time series from 1979 to 2013 and also from 1992 to 2013, when fire occurrence data quality was highest45 (ρ=0.679 and 0.683, respectively, P<0.001).”
From Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013 (2015) · cites this paper as [45]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
STATISTICAL METHODS FOR ASSESSING AGREEMENT BETWEEN TWO METHODS OF CLINICAL MEASUREMENT
Martin Bland, J., & Altman, D. (1986) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(86)90837-8 · Cited by 47,965 · see citing works
Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity.
Westerling, A. L., Hidalgo, H. G., Cayan, D. R., & Swetnam, T. W. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1128834 · Cited by 5,176 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…at risk may be influenced by changes in those factors (e.g., McKenzie et al., 2003; Gedalof et al., 2005; Stephens, 2005; Collins et al., 2006; Westerling et al., 2006; Parisien and Moritz, 2007; Miller et al., 2008; Littel et al., 2009; Preisler et al., 2009; Davis and Miller, 2010; Miller…”
BackgroundA Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity
Eidenshink, J., Schwind, B., Brewer, K., Zhu, Z.-L., Quayle, B., & Howard, S. (2007) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.4996/fireecology.0301003 · Cited by 1,423 · see citing works
Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916-2003.
Littell, J., McKenzie, D., Peterson, D., & Westerling, A. (2009) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/07-1183.1 · Cited by 1,120 · see citing works
Large forest fires in Canada, 1959–1997
Stocks, B. J., Mason, J. A., Todd, J. B., Bosch, E. M., Wotton, B. M., Amiro, B. D., Flannigan, M., Hirsch, K. G., Logan, K. A., Martell, D. L., et al. (2002) · Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · doi:10.1029/2001jd000484 · Cited by 970 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., Safford, H. D., Crimmins, M., & Thode, A. E. (2009) · Ecosystems · doi:10.1007/s10021-008-9201-9 · Cited by 747 · see citing works
Climatic change, wildfire, and conservation
McKENZIE, D., GEDALOF, Z., PETERSON, D. L., & MOTE, P. (2004) · Conservation Biology · doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.00492.x · Cited by 666 · see citing works
Climate and Wildfire in the Western United States
Westerling, A. L., Gershunov, A., Brown, T., Cayan, D. R., & Dettinger, M. D. (2003) · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · doi:10.1175/bams-84-5-595 · Cited by 529 · see citing works
A simulation of probabilistic wildfire risk components for the continental United States
Finney, M. A., McHugh, C. W., Grenfell, I. C., Riley, K. L., & Short, K. C. (2011) · Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment · doi:10.1007/s00477-011-0462-z · Cited by 420 · see citing works
Self-citationEnvironmental controls on the distribution of wildfire at multiple spatial scales
Parisien, M.-A., & Moritz, M. A. (2009) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.1890/07-1289.1 · Cited by 383 · see citing works
Ager, A. A., Vaillant, N. M., & Finney, M. A. (2010) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.01.032 · Cited by 308 · see citing works
A review of recent advances in risk analysis for wildfire management
Miller, C., & Ager, A. A. (2013) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf11114 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
Gedalof, Z., Peterson, D., & Mantua, N. (2005) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/03-5116 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
Forest fire causes and extent on United States Forest Service lands
Stephens, S. L. (2005) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf04006 · Cited by 232 · see citing works
Trends and causes of severity, size, and number of fires in northwestern California, USA
Miller, J. D., Skinner, C. N., Safford, H. D., Knapp, E. E., & Ramirez, C. M. (2012) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/10-2108.1 · Cited by 227 · see citing works
Demographic trends, the wildland-urban interface, and wildfire management
Hammer, R. B., Stewart, S. I., & Radeloff, V. C. (2009) · Society & Natural Resources · doi:10.1080/08941920802714042 · Cited by 205 · see citing works
Spatial variability in wildfire probability across the western United States
Parisien, M., Snetsinger, S., Greenberg, J. A., Nelson, C. R., Schoennagel, T. L., Dobrowski, S. Z., & Moritz, M. A. (2012) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf11044 · Cited by 165 · see citing works
Integrated national-scale assessment of wildfire risk to human and ecological values
Thompson, M. P., Calkin, D. E., Finney, M. A., Ager, A. A., & Gilbertson-Day, J. W. (2011) · Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment · doi:10.1007/s00477-011-0461-0 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Developing the US Wildland Fire Decision Support System
Noonan-Wright, E. K., Opperman, T. S., Finney, M. A., et al. (2011) · Journal of Combustion · doi:10.1155/2011/168473 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
Regional relationships between climate and wildfire-burned area in the Interior West, USA
Collins, B. M., Omi, P. N., & Chapman, P. L. (2006) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research · doi:10.1139/x05-264 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Ryan, K. C., & Opperman, T. S. (2013) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2012.11.003 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
Probabilistic assessment of wildfire hazard and municipal watershed exposure
Scott, J., Helmbrecht, D., Thompson, M. P., Calkin, D. E., & Marcille, K. (2012) · Natural Hazards · doi:10.1007/s11069-012-0265-7 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
Preisler, H. K., Burgan, R. E., Eidenshink, J. C., Klaver, J. M., & Klaver, R. W. (2009) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf08032 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Fire danger rating in the United States of America: an evolution since 1916*
Hardy, C. C., & Hardy, C. E. (2007) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf06076 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
The state of development of fire management decision support systems in America and Europe
Mavsar, R., Gonzales-Caban, A., & Varela, E. (2013) · Forest Policy and Economics · doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2012.11.009 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
A MODIS direct broadcast algorithm for mapping wildfire burned area in the western United States
Urbanski, S. P., Salmon, J. M., Nordgren, B. L., & Hao, W. M. (2009) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2009.07.007 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Weather Variables Affecting Oklahoma Wildfires
Reid, A. M., Fuhlendorf, S. D., & Weir, J. R. (2010) · Rangeland Ecology & Management · doi:10.2111/rem-d-09-00132.1 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Beyond wildfire: perspectives of climate, managed fire and policy in the USA
Kolden, C. A., & Brown, T. J. (2010) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf08111 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Wildland Fires within Municipal Jurisdictions
Thomas, D. S., & Butry, D. T. (2012) · Journal of Forestry · doi:10.5849/jof.10-024 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Andrews, P.: Fire danger rating and fire behaviour prediction in the United States, in: Proceedings of the Fifth NRIFD Sympo- sium, International Symposium on Forest Fire Protection, Mi- taka, Tokyo, Japan, 30 November-2 December, 106-117, 2005.
- Bunton, D. R.: Wildland fire and weather information data ware- house, in: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Systems Analysis on Forest Resources, Traverse City, MI, USA, 28-31 May 1997, USDA Forest Service, North Central Forest Exper- iment Station, St. Paul, MN, USA, General Technical Report GTR-NC-205, 297-302, 2000.
- Davis, B. H. and Miller, C.: What if we didn't suppress fire? in: Proceedings of the 2009 George Wright Society Biennial Con- ference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites, Portland, OR, USA, 1-6 March 2009, 131-134, 2010.
- Johnston, J. S. and Klick, J.: Fire suppression policy, weather, and Western wildfire trends, in: Wildire Policy: Law and Economics Perspectives, edited by: Bradshaw, K. M. and Leuck, D., RFF Press, New York, NY, USA, 159-177, 2012.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013
Jolly, W. M., Cochrane, M. A., Freeborn, P. H., Holden, Z. A., Brown, T. J., Williamson, G. J., & Bowman, D. M. J. S. (2015) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms8537 · Cited by 2,200 · see citing works
Human-started wildfires expand the fire niche across the United States
Balch, J. K., Bradley, B. A., Abatzoglou, J. T., Nagy, R. C., Fusco, E. J., & Mahood, A. L. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1617394114 · Cited by 1,043 · see citing works
Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers
McLauchlan, K. K., Higuera, P. E., Miesel, J., Rogers, B. M., Schweitzer, J., Shuman, J. K., Tepley, A. J., Varner, J. M., Veblen, T. T., Adalsteinsson, S. A., et al. (2020) · Journal of Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13403 · Cited by 729 · see citing works
“Within the US there are detailed data on the location, date and ignition source for most fires (Short, 2014).”
Negative consequences of positive feedbacks in US wildfire management
Calkin, D. E., Thompson, M. P., & Finney, M. A. (2015) · Forest Ecosystems · doi:10.1186/s40663-015-0033-8 · Cited by 323 · see citing works
Caton, S. E., Hakes, R. S. P., Gorham, D. J., Zhou, A., & Gollner, M. J. (2017) · Fire Technology · doi:10.1007/s10694-016-0589-z · Cited by 241 · see citing works
Williams, A. P., & Abatzoglou, J. T. (2016) · Current Climate Change Reports · doi:10.1007/s40641-016-0031-0 · Cited by 173 · see citing works
Controls on interannual variability in lightning-caused fire activity in the western US
Abatzoglou, J. T., Kolden, C. A., Balch, J. K., & Bradley, B. A. (2016) · Environmental Research Letters · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/045005 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
- Authors
- Short, K. C.
- Affiliations
- Rocky Mountain Research Station (US)
- Corresponding author
- Short, K. C.
- ORCID
- Short, K. C.
- Venue
- Earth System Science Data
- Publisher
- Copernicus GmbH
- Published
- 2014-01-03
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-27
- ISSN
- 1866-3508 (ISSN-L)
- 1866-3516
- OpenAlex
- W2154823382
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 16.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Earth system science data (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Colorado State University
- Arizona State University
- Washington State University
- Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
- Michigan Department of Natural Resources
- ICAR - National Agricultural Science Fund
- U.S. Forest Service
- California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
- Keywords
- forest fires, spatial databases, burned area, data standardization, data completeness
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
