Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge Fire History GIS Feature Classes

Summary

This feature class documents the fire history on CMR from 1964 - present. This is 1 of 2 feature classes, a polygon and a point. This data has a variety of different origins which leads to differing quality of data. Within the polygon feature class, this contains perimeters that were mapped using a GPS, hand digitized, on-screen digitized, and buffered circles to the estimated acreage. These 2 files should be kept together. Within the point feature class, fires with only a location of latitude/longitude, UTM coordinate, TRS and no estimated acreage were mapped using a point location. GPS started being used in 1992 when the technology became available. Records from FMIS (Fire Management Information System) were reviewed and compared to refuge records. Polygon data in FMIS only occurs from 2012 to current and many acreage estimates did not match. This dataset includes ALL fires no matter the size.


This feature class documents the fire history on CMR from 1964 - present. This is 1 of 2 feature classes, a polygon and a point. This data has a variety of different origins which leads to differing quality of data. Within the polygon feature class, this contains perimeters that were mapped using a GPS, hand digitized, on-screen digitized, and buffered circles to the estimated acreage. These 2 files should be kept together. Within the point feature class, fires with only a location of latitude/longitude, UTM coordinate, TRS and no estimated acreage were mapped using a point location. GPS started being used in 1992 when the technology became available. Data origins include: Data origins include: 1) GPS Polygon-data (Best), 2) GPS Lat/Long or UTM, 3)TRS QS, 4)TRS Point, 6)Hand digitized from topo map, 7) Circle buffer, 8)Screen digitized, 9) FMIS Lat/Long. Started compiling fire history of CMR in 2007. This has been a 10 year process.FMIS doesn't include fires polygons that are less than 10 acres. This dataset has been sent to FMIS for FMIS records to be updated with correct information. The spreadsheet contains 10-15 records without spatial information and weren't included in either feature class. Fire information from 1964 - 1980 came from records Larry Eichhorn, BLM, provided to CMR staff. Mike Granger, CMR Fire Management Officer, tracked fires on an 11x17 legal pad and all this information was brought into Excel and ArcGIS. Frequently, other information about the fires were missing which made it difficult to back track and fill in missing data. Time was spent verifiying locations that were occasionally recorded incorrectly (DMS vs DD) and converting TRS into Lat/Long and/or UTM. CMR is divided into 2 different UTM zones, zone 12 and zone 13. This occasionally caused errors in projecting. Naming conventions caused confusion. Fires are frequently names by location and there are several "Soda Creek", "Rock Creek", etc fires. Fire numbers were occasionally missing or incorrect. Fires on BLM were included if they were "Assists". Also, fires on satellite refuges and the district were also included. Acreages from GIS were compared to FMIS acres. Please see documentation in ServCat (URL) to see how these were handled.

Tags: fire, general-fire-fire-ecology-fire-history, gis, maps, prescribed-burn, wildfire
Organization: Department of the Interior