Description: The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation. This makes the WUI a focal area for human-environment conflicts such as wildland fires, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and biodiversity decline. Using geographic information systems (GIS), we integrated U.S. Census and USGS National Land Cover Data, to map the Federal Register definition of WUI (Federal Register 66:751, 2001) for the conterminous United States from 1990-2010. These data are useful within a GIS for mapping and analysis at national, state, and local levels. Data are available as a geodatabase and include information such as housing and population densities for 1990, 2000, and 2010; wildland vegetation percentages for 1992, 2001, and 2011; as well as WUI classes in 1990, 2000, and 2010.
Service Item Id: 66fef437a08949f796871ea0d79b62c6
Copyright Text: Financial support was provided by the USDA Forest Service under the National Fire Plan. Funding also provided by USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station. Data obtained from the U.S. Census and USGS National Land Cover Data, see source citations noted below for more details.
Description: At-risk communities are referenced in Part B of the HFRA Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) definition. Some at-risk communities have been digitized based on the Federal register list of At-Risk Communities, 2001. Other communities from wildfirerisk.org (from the Research Data Archive file named RDS 2020-0016 supplements) have also been included. Additionally, at-risk communities can be identified by states and/or counties lists. Local data stewards can also add at-risk communities. All at risk communities must met the definition of an at-risk community in Part B of HFRA: (B) in the case of any area for which a community wildfire protection plan is not in effect— (i) an area extending 1⁄2-mile from the boundary of an at-risk community; (ii) an area within 11⁄2 miles of the boundary of an at-risk community, including any land that— (I) has a sustained steep slope that creates the potential for wildfire behavior endangering the at-risk community; (II) has a geographic feature that aids in creating an effective fire break, such as a road or ridge top; or (III) is in condition class 3, as documented by the Secretary in the project-specific environmental analysis; Some data sources used to spatially locate these at-risk communities are point features, and therefore extent of the community must be estimated. To estimate the community extent, all at-risk communities that were found in the Census_Place EDW data set were used to find the median size of those at-risk communities. The median size has been rounded to a 1-mile buffer. That community extent can be adjusted by digitizing a more accurate community extent with local knowledge of the actual size of the community. The at-risk communities in this layer will be buffered using the buffer distance field which is defined as:Per the HFRA WUI definition, an at-risk community is buffered by 0.5 miles unless there are sustained steep slopes, a geographic feature that will aid in a creating a fuel break, or is in Very High Wildfire Hazard Potential. If the area between 0.5 miles and 1.5 miles from the community meet any of these criteria, then Buffer_Distance field should be changed to 1.5 miles. For estimated community extents, it is the estimated extent that will be buffered. There have been legal court decisions on the interpretation of HFRA WUI that only apply to regional areas, and because of this, direction may change between FS Regions. Verify the official Regional direction for using HFRA WUI. Outside of areas impacted by court rulings, HFRA_CWPP_WUI (PartA) can be used in conjunction with At-Risk Communities (Part B) and Evacuation Routes (Part B) that are stored separately. Each region is only responsible for populating data within their Region.The HFRA_AtRisk (communities) will be buffered and combined with HFRA_Evac (routes) and HFRA_CWPP_WUI boundaries to produce the HFRA_WUI data layer published in the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). The HFRA_WUI layer is designed ONLY for use with HFRA Fuels Categorical Exclusions, where HFRA WUI is legally required, when following USFS direction, and fiscal decisions, specifically funds granted in the Inflation Reduction Act. Other WUI layers should be used outside of the purposes listed above, like the USFS & University of Wisconsin SILVAS WUI.
Service Item Id: 66fef437a08949f796871ea0d79b62c6
Copyright Text: Enter Forest Service unit entering the Feature Class data.