LANDFIRE 2001 Refresh Canopy Bulk Density (CBD) CONUS

LANDFIRE’s (LF) 2001 Canopy Bulk Density (CBD) product is defined as the mass of available canopy fuel per unit canopy volume that would burn in a crown fire (Van Wagner 1977; Scott and Reinhardt 2001; Keane et al. 2005). A spatially explicit map of canopy bulk density supplies information used in fire behavior models such as FARSITE (Finney 1998) to determine the spread characteristics of crown fires across the landscape. The CBD mapping process began by deriving field referenced estimates of canopy characteristics through LFRDB plot analysis. Approximately 45,000 plots were acquired throughout the US for estimating LF 2001 CBD. Utilizing these plots, field referenced CBD values were computed for each plot using the canopy fuel estimation software FuelCalc (Reinhardt et al. 2006b). To model the relationship between these stand and canopy characteristics the outputs from the FuelCalc computations were analyzed using a gamma log-link Generalized Linear Model (GLM) (McCullagh and Nelder 1983). The resulting GLM was applied spatially across a mapzone through the use of the LANDFIRE Fuels Change Mapping Tool, or ToFuDelta, to provide a mapped estimate of CBD. These preliminary CBD products were finalized after applying a series of post-processing techniques and logic checks ensuring that the canopy fuel products were relevant in the context of the other fuel layers and fire behavior predictions.

[
  "010:12"
]

[
  "geospatial"
]