LANDFIRE ›› Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q.	What data do you need?

We seek existing field-sampled vegetation and/or fuel-loading data that you have collected for inventory, monitoring, mapping, research, or similar purposes.

The vegetation data should afford some combination of the following from each sampling unit (for example, plot or transect):

• a cover type and/or potential vegetation type label,
• a full or partial list of plant taxa present with canopy cover estimates for each,
• height estimates for plant taxa and/or individual trees,
• diameters of individual trees,
• crown ratios and crown classes of individual trees, and
• tree densities.

The fuel-loading data should include the following:

• counts or biomass estimates of fine and coarse woody material and
• depths or biomass estimates of litter and duff layers.

Photos of the sampling units are useful as well, and records of exotic plant taxa, ideally with cover estimates, are useful regardless of what additional vegetation or fuel information may accompany them.

The only requirement for all records included in the LANDFIRE reference database is a geo-reference for each sampling point, preferably as determined with a Global Positioning System device in the field. And for the coordinate information to be useful, the map datum and any other relevant projection parameters for the coordinate system must accompany these data.

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