Latest NewsLANDFIRE's (LF) Forest Canopy Base Height (CBH) describes the average height from the ground to a forest stand's canopy bottom. Specifically, it is the lowest height in a stand at which there is enough forest canopy fuel to propagate fire vertically into the canopy. CBH unit measurements are meters * 10. These products are provided for forested areas only.
CBH first incorporated Annual Disturbance products during LF 2008 production. The introduction of this information allowed for informed changes to the assigned CBH from disturbance type, severity, and time since the disturbance.
In LF 2016 Remap, Fuel Vegetation Type, Fuel Vegetation Cover, and Fuel Vegetation Height were incorporated in place of Existing Vegetation Type, Existing Vegetation Cover, and Existing Vegetation Height for CBH assignment. The fuel vegetation data are pre-disturbance at disturbance locations and existing vegetation at non-disturbance locations. The pre-disturbance scenario is represented by the vegetation that existed before the event occurred. The combination of pre-disturbance and non-disturbance vegetation are used to calculate CBH by informing how much or little and what type of fuels are natural or acted on by a disturbance event. Linear equations for these calculations are derived from Forest Vegetation Simulator scenario outputs.
Another improvement in LF Remap fuels products in disturbed areas is that they have been adjusted to expected 2019 or 2020 vegetation conditions for disturbances that have occurred between 2010 and 2016, making the fuels products 2019 capable or 2020 capable. LF Remap CBH is assigned using FDist capable fuels, as a result it has "capable fuels" functionality.
LF 2016 Remap for Alaska (AK) includes a 90-kilometer buffer along the 1,500 miles of the eastern and southern borders AK shares with Canada.
LF 2019 Limited products focus on updating areas of change/disturbance that occurred since the completion of LF 2016 Remap, including the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019. The non-disturbed vegetation will be identical to LF Remap. Fuel products in LF 2019L pixels mapped as disturbed by LF from 2011–2019 have been transitioned to estimate conditions in 2021. These products will include capable fuels, bringing the data to a 2021 effective condition.
CBH provides information for fire behavior models to determine areas in which a surface fire is likely to transition to a crown fire.
Product availability
Attribute Data Dictionary
Comma separated value (CSV) files can be found in the LF Library.
Download DataMetadata:
