Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Return to search results
💡 Advanced Search Tip

Search by organization or tag to find related datasets

Burned Area Reflectance Classification Thematic Burn Severity Mosaic for CONUS in 2022

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Metadata Last Checked: July 15, 2025 | Last Modified: 20250129
These data products are preliminary burn severity assessments derived from data obtained from suitable imagery (including Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, Landsat OLI, Sentinel 2A, and Sentinel 2B). The pre-fire and post-fire subsets included were used to create a differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) image. The dNBR image attempts to portray the variation of burn severity within a fire. The severity ratings are influenced by the effects to the canopy. The severity rating is based upon a composite of the severity to the understory (grass, shrub layers), midstory trees and overstory trees. Because there is often a strong correlation between canopy consumption and soil effects, this algorithm works in many cases for Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams whose objective is a soil burn severity assessment. It is not, however, appropriate in all ecosystems or fires. It is expected that BAER teams will adjust the thresholds to match field observations to produce a soil burn severity. This map layer is a thematic raster image of burn severity classes for all inventoried fires occurring in CONUS during calendar year 2022. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available, or fires which were not discernable from available imagery.

Complete Metadata

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov