RAVG PostfireVegChg: Post-Wildfire Vegetation Condition Perimeters for the U.S.

The USDA Forest Service RAVG program provides standardized assessments of vegetation damage for all qualifying wildland fires in the contiguous U.S. since 2012. Data includes estimates of percent change in basal area and canopy cover, plus a composite burn index, derived from Landsat satellite imagery. Individual fire assessments are typically available within 45 days of containment, with annual national mosaics compiled each fire season.

Use Cases

• Modeling forest recovery trajectories based on standardized burn severity indices.
• Assessing wildfire damage to canopy cover and basal area for ecological impact studies.
• Mapping the spatial extent and severity of historical wildfires across the contiguous U.S.
• Planning post-fire land management and restoration activities based on vegetation condition.

Strengths

• Provides data for all qualifying fires in the contiguous U.S. since 2012, offering a multi-year record.
• Includes three standardized thematic products (BA-7, CC-5, CBI-4) for consistent analysis.
• Data is typically produced within 45 days of fire containment, supporting timely assessment.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and individual dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2012 to present.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:50:57.038435; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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