20210223
17230400
1.0
FGDC CSDGM Metadata
FALSE
MTBS_Burn_Area_Boundary
002
-166.188453
-65.338210
17.947361
70.158926
1
Geographic
GCS_North_American_1983
Angular Unit: Degree (0.017453)
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20241001
15163100
20241001
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150000000
5000
FGDC
U.S. Geological Survey
MTBS Project Manager
800-252-4547
47914 252Nd Street
Sioux Falls
SD
57198
US
https://www.mtbs.gov/contact
ArcGIS Metadata
1.0
GS ScienceBase
U.S. Geological Survey
1-888-275-8747
Denver Federal Center, Building 810, Mail Stop 302
Denver
CO
80225
US
sciencebase@usgs.gov
None
Digital Data
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9IED7RZ
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9IED7RZ
https://www.mtbs.gov/
Enterprise Geodatabase Feature Class
USA
2026-04-27T08:10:06
U.S. Geological Survey
USDA Forest Service
vector digital data
A Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity
MTBS_Burn_Area_Boundary
<DIV STYLE="text-align:Left;"><P><SPAN>The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Program assesses the frequency, extent, and magnitude (size and severity) of all large wildland fires (including wildfires and prescribed fires) in the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico from the beginning of the Landsat Thematic Mapper archive to the present. All fires reported as greater than 1,000 acres in the western U.S. and greater than 500 acres in the eastern U.S. are mapped across all ownerships. MTBS produces a series of geospatial and tabular data for analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales and are intended to meet a variety of information needs that require consistent data about fire effects through space and time. This map layer is a vector polygon shapefile of the location of all currently inventoried fires occurring between calendar year 1984 and the current MTBS release for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Please visit https://mtbs.gov/announcements to determine the current release. Fires omitted from this mapped inventory are those where suitable satellite imagery was not available or fires were not discernable from available imagery.</SPAN></P><P><SPAN /></P></DIV>
The data generated by MTBS will be used to identify national trends in burn severity, providing information necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the National Fire Plan and Healthy Forests Restoration Act. MTBS is sponsored by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), a multi-agency oversight group responsible for implementing and coordinating the National Fire Plan and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies. The MTBS project objective is to provide consistent, 30 meter spatial resolution burn severity data and burned area delineations that will serve four primary user groups including: 1. National policies and policy makers such as the National Fire Plan and WFLC which require information about long-term trends in burn severity and recent burn severity impacts within vegetation types, fuel models, condition classes, and land management activities. 2. Field management units that benefit from mid to broad scale GIS-ready maps and data for pre- and post-fire assessment and monitoring. Field units that require finer scale burn severity data will also benefit from increased efficiency, reduced costs, and data consistency by starting with MTBS data. 3. Existing databases from other comparably scaled programs, such as Fire Regime and Condition Class (FRCC) within LANDFIRE, that will benefit from MTBS data for validation and updating of geospatial data sets. 4. Academic and government agency research entities interested in fire severity data over significant geographic and temporal extents.
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Project (U.S. Geological Survey and USDA Forest Service). U.S. Geological Survey (physical address): 47914 252nd Street: Sioux Falls, SD, USA, 57198. Phone: 800-252-4547. USDA Forest Service (physical address): 125 South State Street, Suite 7105: Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 84138. Phone: 801-975-3800.
U.S. Geological Survey
MTBS Project Manager
800-252-4547
47914 252Nd Street
Sioux Falls
SD
57198
US
https://www.mtbs.gov/contact
Common geographic areas
Hawaii
Puerto Rico
United States
Continental U.S.
Alaska
Common geographic areas
HI
AK
CONUS
PR
US
ISO 19115 Topic Category
imageryBaseMapsEarthCover
Sentinel
Differenced normalized burn ratio
Burned area
Normalized burn ratio
Burn severity
Landsat
Location
Wildland fire
Fire occurrence
MTBS
Fire location
Wildfire
Prescribed fire
Hawaii
Sentinel
HI
Differenced normalized burn ratio
Puerto Rico
Burned area
United States
Normalized burn ratio
Burn severity
Landsat
AK
Location
CONUS
PR
Continental U.S.
Wildland fire
Fire occurrence
imageryBaseMapsEarthCover
MTBS
Fire location
US
Wildfire
Alaska
Prescribed fire
This product is produced from MTBS geospatial information prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey EROS and USDA Forest Service. By taking receipt of these files via electronic file transfer methods, you understand that the data may be updated due to the availability of additional data or revision of existing data. Represented features may not be in an accurate geographic location. The U.S. Geological Survey EROS and USDA Forest Service make no expressed or implied warranty, including warranty of merchantability and fitness, with respect to the character, function, or capabilities of the data or their appropriateness for any user's purposes. The U.S. Geological Survey EROS and USDA Forest Service reserve the right to correct, update, modify, or replace this geospatial information without notification.
<DIV STYLE="text-align:Left;"><DIV><P><SPAN>There are no restrictions on use, except for reasonable and proper acknowledgement of information sources.</SPAN></P></DIV></DIV>
A Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity
2026-04-27T08:10:06
Zhi-Liang Zhu
Jeff Eidenshink
Ken Brewer
Brian Schwind
Stephen Howard
Brad Quayle
publication
Fire Ecology Special Issue Vol. 3, No. 1, 2007
https://www.mtbs.gov/sites/default/files/inline-files/Eidenshink-final.pdf
observed
1984-01-01
2018-01-01
-165.9252
-65.3382
17.9474
70.1589
See https://www.mtbs.gov/ for project information and data access. Refer to https://www.mtbs.gov/contact for additional support.
Esri ArcGIS 13.3.0.52636
1
-166.188453
-65.338210
70.158926
17.947361
No tests for logical consistency have been performed on this map layer.
Data completeness reflects the availability of fire occurrence information and/or availability of suitable imagery (including Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, Landsat OLI, Sentinel 2A, and Sentinel 2B), and the current progression of processing by the MTBS program in the specified state or geographic region. In some areas, fires smaller than the specified MTBS fire size criteria may be present. These fires were mapped using MTBS mapping protocols to meet the data/information needs of other unrelated programs but are included in the MTBS database.
MTBS geospatial data (both vector and raster) are generated using consistent methods and procedures. Continuous burn severity image datasets and reflectance imagery datasets are examined individually for each fire to delineate a burned area boundary dataset. MTBS burned area boundaries are compiled based on analysis of remote sensing data and can differ significantly from fire perimeter data for wildfire incidents published by other sources and compiled using different means.
Each image used to create the burn severity assessment (utilizing Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, Landsat OLI, Sentinel 2A, and Sentinel 2B), was precision terrain-corrected using 3-arc-second digital terrain elevation data, and georegistered using ground control points. This resulted in a root mean square registration error of less than 1 pixel (30 meters).
N/A
For a detailed definition and discussion on the processing and production of MTBS geospatial data, please refer to https://www.mtbs.gov. A synopsis of the production of this layer is provided below. MTBS burn boundary data are derived from suitable imagery (including Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, Landsat OLI, Sentinel 2A, and Sentinel 2B). A pre- and a post-fire scene are used to create a differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) image. The continuous dNBR image portrays the variations of burn severity within the fire. In exceptional circumstances, a suitable pre-fire image may not be available to generate a dNBR . Consequently, analysis and assessment is conducted using the post-fire NBR image only. The MTBS burned area boundaries are delineated by on-screen interpretation of the Landsat/Sentinel 2-derived reflectance imagery and the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), differenced NBR (dNBR) and relativized dNBR (RdNBR) images. The burned area boundaries are digitized to include any detectable fire area derived from these images. To ensure consistency and high spatial precision, digitization is performed at on-screen display scales between 1:24000 and 1:50000. The MTBS mapping approach has consistently occurred in five primary steps: 1. Fire Occurrence Data Compilation 2. Scene Selection and Image Pre-processing 3. Perimeter Delineation 4. Burn Severity Interpretation 5. Data Distribution 1. Fire Occurrence Data Compilation: Historically, MTBS compiled fire occurrence data from a number of federal and state databases that maintained little consistency in standards for content, geospatial accuracy, and nomenclature. These datasets were then filtered and standardized internally by MTBS staff in an effort to reduce duplication of incident records reported by multiple agencies, and to resolve gross geospatial inaccuracies that were commonly found in the source data. In recent years, significant improvements have been made to streamline the reporting procedures and data exchange for land management agencies in their creation and maintenance of fire occurrence data. Specifically, the Integrated Reporting of Wildland-Fire Information (IRWIN) Project has provided an end-to-end fire reporting system focused on the goals of reducing redundant data entry, identifying authoritative data sources, and improving the consistency, accuracy, and availability of operational data. Through a multi-year phased approach, the IRWIN Project is tasked with identifying and integrating fire occurrence data from a number of different sources and applications. Fire occurrence data from IRWIN are routinely ingested into a database maintained by MTBS and other postfire mapping programs, and currently make up the bulk of the records used by MTBS to identify candidate fires for mapping. More information on IRWIN can be found at: https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/WFIT/applications/IRWIN/index.shtml.
2026-03-30
4. Burn Severity Interpretation: The process of developing a categorical burn severity product is subjective and is dependent on analyst interpretation. The analyst evaluates the dNBR data range and determines where significant thresholds exist in the data to discriminate between burn severity classes. Interpretations are conducted on the NBR, dNBR and RdNBR data, aided by the prefire and postfire imagery, and analyst experience with fire behavior and effects in a given ecological setting. Where available, high resolution imagery is visually inspected to provide confidence in selecting the burn severity thresholds. Thresholding dNBR data into thematic class values results in an intuitive map depicting a manageable number of ecologically significant classes (typically 4 to 7 class values). There are uncertainties in this approach stemming from analyst subjectivity and limited or no plot data to guide threshold selection. Ecological significance of burn severity classes will also likely vary across regions and landscapes and one set of thresholds cannot be expected to apply equally well to all analysis objectives and management issues.
2026-03-30
3. Perimeter Delineation: The burned area boundary is delineated by on-screen interpretation of the reflectance imagery, NBR, dNBR and/or RdNBR images. The mapping analyst digitizes a perimeter to include any detectable fire area derived from these images. Clouds, cloud shadows, snow or other anomalies intersecting the fire area are also delineated and used to generate a mask later in the workflow. The mapping analyst may inspect and/or modify an existing burn area boundary and mask sourced from a reputable fire occurrence dataset or fire detection model when available. To ensure consistency and high spatial precision, digitization and inspection is performed at on-screen display scales between 1:24000 and 1:50000.
2026-03-30
2. Scene Selection and Image Pre-processing: For fire events that meet the minimum size requirement for MTBS mapping, corresponding Landsat and Sentinel scenes are selected based upon the reported location and ignition date. After an initial review and determination of the appropriate assessment strategy: initial, extended or single scene, candidate prefire and postfire scenes are reviewed and downloaded using tools and applications developed by U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, such as Earth Explorer and GloVis. Limitations due to scene quality are common in areas prone to cloud cover (e.g., the Southeast United States). Other atmospheric conditions such as smoke from active fires, terrain shadows and other obscurations also reduce the number of candidate scenes. In addition, northern latitudes are subject to a shorter period of optimal scene selection due to undesirable sun angles in the fall and a shorter growing season. Downloaded scenes are processed to generate top-of-atmosphere reflectance images according to existing USGS-EROS protocols that include geometric (including terrain correction) and radiometric correction through the Landsat Ground Processing System process. Prior to processing the imagery into a burn severity product, prefire and postfire images are inspected for co-registration accuracy and corrected if spatial differences are noted. Using the reflectance imagery, a Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) image is generated for each prefire and postfire scene as the normalized difference between middle infrared and near infrared wavelength bands and then differenced to create a dNBR image. A relativized dNBR (RdNBR) is also calculated to evaluate potential limitations of dNBR to characterize fire severity on low biomass sites and potentially enhance inter-fire comparability of the results at larger ecological scales. Processing the Landsat or Sentinel image data to NBR, dNBR and RdNBR is a straightforward series of calculations relying principally on automated production sequences.
2026-03-30
5. Data Distribution: The primary access point for acquiring MTBS data is through the program website: https://www.mtbs.gov. There you will find an interactive viewer which allows users to search for and download individual fire data in addition to direct download options for state and national data products. Connection information is also provided for those interested in using web map services.
2026-03-30
MTBS_Burn_Area_Boundary
Table containing attribute information associated with the data set.
Producer Defined
Feature Class
29583
OBJECTID
OBJECTID
OID
4
10
0
Internal feature number.
Esri
Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.
FIRE_ID
FIRE_ID
String
30
0
0
FIRE_NAME
FIRE_NAME
String
50
0
0
YEAR
YEAR
SmallInteger
2
5
0
STARTMONTH
STARTMONTH
SmallInteger
2
5
0
STARTDAY
STARTDAY
SmallInteger
2
5
0
FIRE_TYPE
FIRE_TYPE
String
254
0
0
ACRES
ACRES
Double
8
38
8
Post_ID
Landsat or Sentinel post scene ID.
Producer Defined
Example: 701503620081007
POST_ID
String
254
0
0
Pre_ID
Landsat or Sentinel pre scene ID.
Producer Defined
Example: 503803520040723
PRE_ID
String
254
0
0
Asmnt_Type
Fire mapping assessment label (Initial (SS) (SS=single scene), Initial, Extended, Extended (SS) (SS=single scene), Emergency, or Emergency (SS)).
Producer Defined
Extended (SS)
Imagery aquired during seasonal peak-of-green after fire containment. No pre-fire image was available; assessment based on NBR.
Producer defined
Emergency (SS)
Imagery aquired during active incident or immediatly after fire containment. No pre-fire image was available; assessment based on NBR.
Producer defined
Initial (SS)
Imagery aquired shortly after fire containment. No pre-fire image was available; assessment based on NBR.
Producer defined
Initial
Imagery aquired shortly after fire containment.
Producer defined
Extended
Imagery aquired during seasonal peak-of-green after fire containment.
Producer defined
Emergency
Imagery aquired during active incident or immediatly after fire containment.
Producer defined
ASMNT_TYPE
String
254
0
0
Shape
Feature geometry.
ESRI
Coordinates defining the features.
SHAPE
Geometry
8
0
0
dNBR_offst
The mean dNBR value sampled from an unburned area outside the fire perimeter.
Producer Defined
-9999 or 9999
No Data
Producer defined
-9999
9999
DNBR_OFFST
Integer
4
10
0
dNBR_stdDv
The standard deviation of the mean dNBR value sampled from an unburned area outside the fire perimeter.
Producer Defined
-9999 or 9999
No Data
Producer defined
-9999
9999
DNBR_STDDV
Integer
4
10
0
irwinID
IRWIN ID.
IRWIN Defined
The IRWIN ID is a unique identifier created by the Integrated Reporting of Wildland-Fire Information (IRWIN) service. Example: 5DF6471C-07B0-4EA0-8188-4F83B18A47F8
IRWINID
String
254
0
0
Perim_ID
Landsat or Sentinel perimeter scene ID. Used to help delinate perimeter of an Extended or Extended (SS) assessment. Not always utilized sometimes field will be populated, others not.
Producer Defined
Example: A15RVQ20190514
PERIM_ID
String
254
0
0
Map_ID
Mapping ID.
Producer Defined
1
99999999
MAP_ID
Integer
4
10
0
Map_Prog
Mapping program/protocol the fire was mapped with.
Producer Defined
Examples: MTBS, RAVG, BAER, NPS
MAP_PROG
String
254
0
0
NODATA_THRESHOLD
NODATA_THRESHOLD
Integer
4
10
0
GREENNESS_THRESHOLD
GREENNESS_THRESHOLD
Integer
4
10
0
LOW_THRESHOLD
LOW_THRESHOLD
Integer
4
10
0
MODERATE_THRESHOLD
MODERATE_THRESHOLD
Integer
4
10
0
HIGH_THRESHOLD
HIGH_THRESHOLD
Integer
4
10
0
COMMENTS
COMMENTS
String
254
0
0
LATITUDE
LATITUDE
Double
8
38
8
LONGITUDE
LONGITUDE
Double
8
38
8
Ig_Date
Date of fire ignition (from source fire occurrence databases).
Producer Defined
Example: 9/30/1992
IG_DATE
Integer
4
10
0
SHAPE.AREA
SHAPE.AREA
Double
0
0
0
SHAPE.LEN
SHAPE.LEN
Double
0
0
0
dataset
EPSG
6.5(3.0.1)
29583
Simple
FALSE
29583
FALSE
FALSE
20241001