FIRESTAT Fire Occurrence: Wildland Fire Ignition Points on U.S. National Forests

FIRESTAT Fire Occurrence point layer represents ignition points for individual wildland fires on National Forest System lands. The dataset is sourced from the FIRESTAT database, which contains records of fire occurrence, behavior conditions, and suppression actions from the Individual Wildland Fire Report. It is updated annually by the Department of Agriculture and was last updated on 2026-03 13.

Use Cases

• Mapping historical fire ignition density based on geospatial point data.
• Analyzing temporal trends in fire occurrence on National Forest System lands.
• Modeling relationships between fire behavior conditions and suppression actions as recorded in fire reports.
• Assessing regional wildfire risk for forest management planning.

Strengths

• Data is updated annually for all previous years, providing a regular refresh.
• Publicly available under a CC-BY-4.0 license, allowing for reuse and redistribution.
• Sourced from an authoritative system (FIRESTAT) managed by the Department of Agriculture.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is limited to National Forest System lands, which may not represent all wildland fires.

Provenance

Source

FIRESTAT (Fire Statistics System) database, Department of Agriculture.

Collection Method

Records from the Individual Wildland Fire Report.

Time Range

Covers all years previous to the annual update date.

Freshness

Updated annually; last updated 2026-03-13.

Geography

National Forest System lands in the United States.