RAVG: Post-Fire Vegetation Change Perimeters for U.S. National Forests, 2012-Present

USDA Forest Service RAVG data characterizes vegetation impact for all qualifying wildland fires in the conterminous U.S. since 2012. It provides standardized estimates of percent change in live basal area and canopy cover, plus a composite burn index, for fires affecting at least 1000 acres of forested National Forest land. Annual national mosaics and a combined perimeter dataset are updated regularly.

Use Cases

• Modeling wildfire severity and vegetation loss based on standardized composite burn index (CBI) and percent change metrics.
• Assessing post-fire recovery patterns for forested land based on estimates of basal area and canopy cover change.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of high-severity burn areas based on the areal extent of forested land with modeled basal area loss above 50% and 75%.
• Mapping fire perimeters and integrating land ownership data for National Forest and wilderness status.

Strengths

• Covers all qualifying wildland fires in the conterminous U.S. (CONUS) since 2012.
• Provides three standardized thematic products: 7-class basal area change, 5-class canopy cover change, and 4-class composite burn index.
• Includes spatial information on land ownership (National Forest) and wilderness status.
• Data is typically made available within 45 days after fire containment for initial assessments.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

USDA Forest Service Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG) program.

Collection Method

Standardized change detection methods based on Landsat or similar multispectral satellite imagery.

Time Range

2012 to present.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:51:01.941161; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Contiguous United States (CONUS), focusing on National Forest System lands.