Identification Information Citation Originator: USDA Forest Service, Geospatial Technology and Applications Center, BAER Imagery Support Program Publication Date: 2017-10-05 Title: Burned Area Reflectance Classification (BARC) Data Bundle for the NORSE PEAK Fire occurring on the Okanogan/Wenatchee National Forest - 2017 Publication Information Publication Place: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Publisher: USDA Forest Service Geospatial Data Presentation Form: raster digital data Online Linkage: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/baer/download.php?year=2017 Description Abstract: The final Soil Burn Severity Map is derived from reflectance information collected from satellite imagery and was corrected/modified after aerial reconnaissance and on-the-ground field verification. The map displays the results of a rapid assessment of the fire effects on soils, and does not represent vegetation burn severity. Safety constraints and poor access to the fire interior limited the amount of field verification. Consider the provisional nature of the information before using it for decisions that concern personal or public safety or the conduct of business that involves substantial monetary or operational consequences. Purpose: These data were created by the Norse Peak BAER team to help specialists evaluate values at risk. Supplemental Information Fire Name: NORSE PEAK Agency: USDA Forest Service Land Management Unit: Mt. Baker-Snoqualamie and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests Type of assessment: Emergency Fire size: 55,920 acres Pre-Fire Imagery Date and Path/Row: N/A Post-Fire Imagery Date and Path/Row: 2017-09-28; 247/037 Output Dataset Projection: Albers Conical Equal Area Datum: D_North_American_1983 Spheroid Name: GRS_1980 Mapping Comments: No prefire imagery available from GloVis for multiple years prefire. Time Period of Content Single Date/Time Calendar Date: 2017-09-28 (post-fire image) Currentness Reference: Severity data correspond to the date of the post-fire image and field observations. Status Progress: Evaluation of methods in process Maintenance and Update Frequency: None planned Spatial Domain Bounding Coordinates West Bounding Coordinate: 481475.992713 East Bounding Coordinate: 504827.992713 North Bounding Coordinate: 1448510.848186 South Bounding Coordinate: 1426558.848186 Keywords Theme Theme Keyword Thesaurus: none Theme Keyword: Wildland Fire Theme Keyword: Wildfire Theme Keyword: Burned Area Emergency Response Theme Keyword: BAER Theme Keyword: NDVI Theme Keyword: Fire Severity Theme Keyword: Burn Severity Theme Keyword: USDA Forest Service Theme Keyword: AWiFS Place Place Keyword Thesaurus: none Place Keyword: Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Place Keyword: Mt. Baker-Snoqualamie National Forest Place Keyword: NORSE PEAK Fire Access Constraints: None Use Constraints: There are no restrictions on use, except for reasonable and proper acknowledgement of information sources and limitations as preliminary/draft data. Data Set Credit: USDA Forest Service Native Data Set Environment: ERDAS Imagine, Esri ArcGIS Data Quality Information Positional Accuracy Horizontal Positional Accuracy Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report: AWiFS data (the source of this Soil Burn Severity mapping) was generally georeferenced to a positional accuracy of +/- 100 meters. Some manual adjustment was made by analysts to encourage better alignment. Lineage Process Step Process Description: These data products are derived from a single post-fire AWiFS satellite image, acquired on September 28, 2017. Due to the lack of available pre-fire imagery, this mapping was done as a single-scene Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) analysis. The NDVI image portrays the variation of vegetation burn severity within the fire. The NDVI is computed for the post-fire image using the following formula: (NIR Band - Red Band) / (NIR Band + Red Band) = NDVI The BARC products are a generalization of the raw, continuous NDVI dataset. The classes represented on the BARC products are created with thresholds chosen by an analyst at GTAC. The final Soil Burn Severity Map was derived from the BARC data and was corrected/modified after aerial reconnaissance and on-the-ground field verification. The map displays the results of a rapid assessment of the fire effects on soils, and does not represent vegetation burn severity. Safety constraints and poor access to the fire interior limited the amount of field verification. The map displays the results of a rapid assessment of the fire effects on soils, and does not represent vegetation burn severity. Soil Burn Severity Classes Defined: Unburned – Soil and ground cover are unaffected by fire. Low – Ground cover is not completely consumed/still recognizable; soil structure is unchanged (“crumbs” intact); fine roots are largely unaffected. Moderate – Up to 80% of pre-fire ground cover may be consumed; near-surface soil structure changes may have occurred; fine roots may be scorched but rarely consumed. Falling needles may help restore effective ground cover relatively quickly. High – Nearly all of pre-fire ground cover consumed; soil structure is less stable or destroyed (powdery/single-grain); fine roots consumed. Bare soil is susceptible to erosion. Spatial Data Organization Information Direct Spatial Reference Method: Vector Spatial Reference Information Horizontal Coordinate System Definition Planar Grid Coordinate System Geographic coordinate reference:GCS_North_American_1983 Projection:Albers_Conical_Equal_Area Coordinate reference details Projected coordinate system X origin:-14710900 Y origin:-7762000 XY scale:294143363.70628083 Z origin:-100000 Z scale:10000 M origin:-100000 M scale:10000 XY tolerance:0.001 Z tolerance:0.001 M tolerance:0.001 Well-known text: PROJCS["Albers_Conical_Equal_Area",GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983",DATUM["D_North_American_1983",SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],PROJECTION["Albers"],PARAMETER["false_easting",600000.0],PARAMETER["false_northing",0.0],PARAMETER["central_meridian",-120.0],PARAMETER["standard_parallel_1",43.0],PARAMETER["standard_parallel_2",48.0],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",34.0],UNIT["Meter",1.0]] Planar Coordinate Information Planar Coordinate Encoding Method: row and column Coordinate Representation Abscissa Resolution: 56.0 Ordinate Resolution: 56.0 Planar Distance Units: Meter Geodetic Model Horizontal Datum Name: D_North_American_1983 Ellipsoid Name: GRS_1980 Semi-major Axis: 6378137.0 Denominator of Flattening Ratio: 298.257222101 Distribution Information Resource Description: Downloadable Data Metadata Reference Information Metadata Date: 2017-10-11 Metadata Contact Contact Information Contact Organization Primary Contact Organization: USDA Forest Service, Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC) Contact Person: Justin Epting Contact Address Address Type: mailing address Address: 2222 W. 2300 S. City: Salt Lake City State or Province: UT Postal Code: 84119 Contact Voice Telephone: 801 975 3755 Contact Electronic Mail Address: baerimagery@fs.fed.us ******************************************************************************** The following section should be completed after the BARC has been field validated by the BAER team and this entire metadata file should be returned to GTAC with the Soil Burn Severity data. BAER Assessment Completion Date: October 18, 2017 BAER Team GIS Analyst: David Keenum BAER Team Leader: Chris Stewart and Marc Stamer Soil Burn Severity Analyst(s): Eric Nicita, Melissa Waid, Noel Ludwig, and Jess Clark as an honorary member Original BARC256 thresholds (AWiFS): Unburned / Very Low: <=76 Low: 77-136 Moderate: 137-174 High: >175 Soil Burn Severity thresholds: Unburned / Very Low: <=60 Low: 61-119 Moderate: 120-159 High: >=160 Sequence of steps used to create Soil Burn Severity data: A GTAC analyst generated a single-scene AWiFS NDVI grayscale image and applied color thresholds to match the Landsat as delivered. After field observations, the thresholds were adjusted to decrease the amount of low. Soil scientists determined that even though, in many cases, vegetation severity/consumption was high, the soil was not necessarily altered. There was a lot of prefire organic material (litter and duff) that was consumed but the effects didn't reach the soils in many cases. Because this fire used a single-scene AWiFS image with no pre-fire comparision, many areas with low prefire biomass or exposed rocky soils looked like moderate severity. GTAC used a pre-fire Landsat 8 image to generate a non-vegetated mask that was applied to the 4-class layer. Where the mask was true (rock / non vegetated), the severity was reclassified as unburned. Additional Comments: