Jurisdictional Units Public

Overview The Jurisdictional Units dataset outlines wildland fire jurisdictional boundaries for federal, state, and local government entities on a national scale and is used within multiple wildland fire systems including the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS), the Interior Fuels and Post-Fire Reporting System (IFPRS), the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS), the Interagency Fire Occurrence Reporting Modules (InFORM), the Interagency Reporting of Wildland Fire Information System (IRWIN), and the Wildland Computer-Aided Dispatch Enterprise System (WildCAD-E). In this dataset, agency and unit names are an indication of the primary manager’s name and unit name, respectively, recognizing that: * There may be multiple owner names. * Jurisdiction may be held jointly by agencies at different levels of government (ie State and Local), especially on private lands. * Some owner names may be blocked for security reasons. * Some jurisdictions may not allow the distribution of owner names. * Private ownerships are shown in this layer with JurisdictionalUnitIID=null, JurisdictionalKind=null, and LandownerKind="Private", LandownerCategory="Private". * All land inside the US country boundary is covered by a polygon. * Jurisdiction for privately owned land varies widely depending on state, county, or local laws and ordinances, fire workload, and other factors, and is not available in a national dataset in most cases. For publicly held lands the agency name is the surface managing agency, such as Bureau of Land Management, United States Forest Service, etc. The unit name refers to the descriptive name of the polygon (i.e. Northern California District, Boise National Forest, etc.). Other Relevant NWCG Definition Standards For additional information on the NWCG geospatial data standards used to create this layer, please see the NWCG [Organizational Kind/Category Standard ]and the [Jurisdictional][ Unit Standards.] These two standards were updated in 2025 and implemented in this dataset. The term Jurisdictional in this datasets is the governmental entity having overall land and resource management responsibility for a specific geographical area as provided by law. Definition Extension: 1) Ultimately responsible for the fire report to account for statistical fire occurrence 2) Responsible for setting fire management objectives 3) Jurisdiction cannot be re-assigned by agreement 4) The nature and extent of the incident determines jurisdiction (for example, Wildfire vs. All Hazard); 5) Responsible for signing a Delegation of Authority to the Incident Commander. Data Sources This dataset is an aggregation of multiple spatial data sources: • Authoritative land ownership records from BIA, BLM, NPS, USFS, USFWS, and the Alaska Fire Service/State of Alaska. • [The Protected Areas Database US] (PAD-US 4.1) • Census Block-Group Geometry (2021) BIA and Tribal Data: BIA and Tribal land management data were aggregated from BIA regional offices. These data date from 2012 and were reviewed/updated in 2025. Indian Trust Land affiliated with Tribes, Reservations, or BIA Agencies: These data are not considered the system of record and are not intended to be used as such. Alaska: The state of Alaska and Alaska Fire Service (BLM) co-manage a process to aggregate authoritative land ownership, management, and jurisdictional boundary data, based on Master Title Plats. Data Processing To compile this dataset, the authoritative land ownership records and the PAD-US data mentioned above were crosswalked into the NWCG Jurisdictional Unit Polygon schema and aggregated through a series of python scripts and FME models. Once aggregated, steps were taken to reduce overlaps within the data. All overlap areas larger than 300 acres were manually examined and removed with the assistance of fire management SMEs. Once overlaps were removed, Census Block Group geometry were crosswalked to the Jurisdictional Unit Polygon schema and appended in areas in which no jurisdictional boundaries were recorded within the authoritative land ownership records and the PAD-US data. Census Block Group geometries represent areas of unknown Jurisdictional Kind/Category and were assigned LandownerKind and LandownerCategory values of "Private". Attributes New from the April 15, 2026 release: New Updates to the [Organizational Kind/Category Standard] (formerly Landowner Kind/Category) and the[ Jurisdictional Unit Standard]. These can now be found on [wildfire.gov]. These have been updated since the January release of the Jurisdictional Boundary layer. Corrections & Updates * Several (~295) BLM parcels in the Great Basin were inadvertently labeled as “State.” These have been corrected to “BLM” * Alaska updated their dataset * NPS: Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve – Changed JU category value to match the new standard. Added a parcel of land to Canaveral National Seashore that use to be filled with census block. New from the January 15, 2026 release: * Fields Removed from Schema: DataSourceYear, Map Method, DateCurrent, LegendJurisdictionalCategory, and LegendLandownerCategory * Fields Added to JU Schema: GISSourceDate, ImportDate, RevisionDate * Legal Value Updates: JurisdictionalKind, JurisdictionalCategory, LandownerKind, LandownerCategory - Now align with 2025 NWCG Kind/Category Standard. ───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Field Name │Definition ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── GeometryID │Primary key for linking geospatial objects with other database systems. Required for every feature. Not populated for Census Block Groups. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JurisdictionalUnitID │Where it could be determined, this is the NWCG Unit Identifier (Unit ID). Where it is unknown, the value is ‘Null’. Null Unit IDs can occur because a unit may not have a Unit ID, or because one could not be reliably determined from the source data. Not every land ownership has an NWCG Unit ID. Unit ID assignment rules are available in the Unit ID standard. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JurisdictionalUnitID_sansUS│NWCG Unit ID with the "US" characters removed from the beginning. Provided for backwards compatibility. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JurisdictionalUnitName │The name of the Jurisdictional Unit. Where an NWCG Unit ID exists for a polygon, this is the name used in the Name field from the NWCG Unit ID database. Where no NWCG Unit ID exists, this is the “Unit Name” or other specific, descriptive unit name field from the source dataset. A value is populated for all polygons except for Census Blocks Group and for PAD-US polygons that did not have an associated name. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── LocalName │Local name for the polygon provided from agency authoritative data, PAD-US, or other source. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JurisdictionalKind │Describes the type of unit jurisdiction using the NWCG Organizational Kind/Category Standard. Valid Kind values are: Federal, State, Local, Sovereign, Foreign, Private, Other. A value is not populated for Census Block Groups. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JurisdictionalCategory │Describes the type of unit jurisdiction using the NWCG Organizational Kind/Category Standard. Valid Category values include: BIA, BLM, BOR, DOD, DOE, NPS, USFS, USFWS, OthFed, State, City, County, OthLocal, Tribal, Foreign, Private, ANC, Other. A value is not populated for Census Block Groups. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── LandownerKind │The landowner kind value associated with the polygon. May be inferred from jurisdictional agency, or by lack of a jurisdictional agency. Legal values align with the NWCG Organizational Kind/Category Standard. A value is populated for all polygons. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── LandownerCategory │The landowner category value associated with the polygon. May be inferred from jurisdictional agency, or by lack of a jurisdictional agency. Legal values align with the NWCG Organizational Kind/Category Standard. A value is populated for all polygons. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── LandownerDepartment │Federal department information that aligns with a unit’s landownerCategory information. Legal values include: Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy. A value is not populated for all polygons. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── DataSource │The database from which the polygon originated. An effort is made to be as specific as possible (i.e. identify the geodatabase name and feature class in which the polygon originated). ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── SecondaryDataSource │If the DataSource field is an aggregation from other sources, this field is used to specify the source that supplied data to the aggregation. For example, if DataSource is "PAD-US 4.1", then for a TNC polygon, the SecondaryDataSource would be " TNC_PADUS2_0_SA2015_Public_gdb ". ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── SourceUniqueID │Identifier (GUID or ObjectID) in the data source. Used to trace the polygon back to its authoritative source. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── GISSourceDate │The date of the last edit to the source datasets (PAD-US 4.1, Federal Agency Sources, Census Block Groups). ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ImportDate │Date data was extracted from sources for aggregation. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── RevisionDate │Date the Jurisdictional Unit team last published or revised the records. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Comments │Additional information describing the feature. ───────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── JoinMethod │Additional information on how the polygon was matched to information in the NWCG Unit ID database. ───────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────