New Fuel Data Product Released:
Modeling Dynamic Fuels with an Index System (MoD-FIS)
The LANDFIRE team at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has released new provisional products for the Great Basin and Southwest regions of the United States that capture the seasonal nature of fuels in this region. Modeling Dynamic Fuels with an Index System (MoD-FIS) incorporates seasonal variability of herbaceous cover (i.e. cheatgrass) to capture changes to fire behavior fuel models based on the current fire season herbaceous production.
Using current and historic Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data from the Landsat archive, LANDFIRE developed a process to map current year herbaceous cover compared to historic averages. The result is updated Existing Vegetation Cover, Existing Vegetation Height, and Fire Behavior Fuel Model layers that reflect the current fire season herbaceous cover and resultant fuel availability.
These products are released multiple times per year, on a provisional basis, for all regions except the furthest north.
Read more about
MoD-FIS on the LF website.
Read the
MoD-FIS Comprehensive Plan.
Related: Read about LF Drought-Based Fuel Dynamic Methods for the
Southeast U.S..
The
MoD-FIS process (feature)
