Burned and Unburned Spruce Forest Sites in Tanana, Alaska, 2017

38 field sites near Tanana, Alaska, provide soil characteristics, permafrost depth, and burn severity data from 2017. The dataset includes Landsat-derived burn ratio estimates and ground-based Composite Burn Index surveys for forests affected by 2015 wildfires. It was published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Modeling relationships between satellite-derived burn severity indices and ground-based Composite Burn Index (CBI) observations.
• Analyzing the impact of 2015 wildfires on soil characteristics and permafrost depth in black and white spruce forests.
• Comparing soil and permafrost conditions between burned and unburned forest sites in interior Alaska.

Strengths

• Data integrates field observations from 38 distinct sites with satellite-derived estimates.
• Focuses on a specific, well-defined geographic area at the confluence of the Yukon and Tanana Rivers.
• Includes observations for both burned (from 2015 wildfires) and unburned control sites.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific study area in Alaska.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Field observations and Landsat satellite data processing.

Time Range

2017 (observations), referencing wildfires from 2015.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 19:37:39.625549; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Forest sites near Tanana, Alaska, USA, approximately 200 km west of Fairbanks.