Vegetation

LANDFIRE 2008 (LF_1.1.0) existing vegetation layers for zones 10, 19, 41, 37, 46, 48, 54, 98, and 99 are updated 5/1/12. The existing vegetation layers were updated due to corrected input layers. Updated layers are Existing Vegetation Type (EVT), Existing Vegetation Height (EVH), and Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC).

Users are advised to delete local copies of these layers downloaded prior to May 1, 2012 and download the updated versions. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

Biophysical Settings (BPS) versions 1.0.5/1.1.0 (Refresh 2001/2008) for the Southeast (SE) GeoArea are updated as of 1/30/12. LF_1.0.5/1.1.0 was delivered incrementally over the course of a year beginning in April 2010 with the SE GeoArea (zones 37, 46, 48, 54, 55, 56, 98, and 99). Remaining GeoAreas were completed over the course of the next eighteen months and methods for completing these data were refined, including improved agricultural, urban, and riparian/wetland mapping. LANDFIRE has now implemented these refinements in the SE GeoArea.

Users are advised to delete local copies of the BPS layer for the SE GeoArea LF_1.0.5/1.1.0 downloaded prior to 1/30/12 and download the updated versions. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

Vegetation layers for the Southeast (SE) GeoArea versions 1.0.5/1.1.0 (Refresh 2001/2008) are updated as of 12-20-11. LF_1.0.5/1.1.0 was delivered incrementally over the course of a year beginning in April 2010 with the SE GeoArea (zones 37, 46, 48, 54, 55, 56, 98, and 99). Remaining GeoAreas were completed over the course of the next eighteen months. Methods for completing these data were refined, including improved agricultural, urban, and riparian/wetland mapping. LANDFIRE implemented these refinements in the SE GeoArea.

The updated LF_1.0.5/1.1.0 vegetation layers for the SE GeoArea include:

Existing Vegetation Cover (EVC)
Existing Vegetation Height (EVH)
Existing Vegetation Type (EVT)

Users are advised to delete local copies of these SE GeoArea LF_1.0.5/1.1.0 layers downloaded prior to 12-20-11 and download the updated versions. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

A problem with LF_1.1.0 (Refresh 2008) zones 1 - 25, 28 - 31, 39 -41 was recently identified. Areas in mechanical disturbances were misclassified. Affected layers include: Existing Vegetation Cover, Existing Vegetation Height, and Existing Vegetation Type. While the affected acreage varies depending on the amount of mechanical disturbance found in any given zone, users are advised to delete any local copies of these layers downloaded prior to May 12, 2011 and download the current versions. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. To read an expanded explanation concerning this Vegetation Transition Error click here.

Revisions were recently made to the Existing Vegetation Cover, Existing Vegetation Height, and Existing Vegetation Type layers for mapping zones 70, 71, and 75. Users are advised to delete any local copies of these three layers downloaded prior to 03/31/09 and download the current versions. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

The Environmental Site Potential layer for mapping zones 15, 18, and 28 was updated October 20, 2008. Users are encouraged to use this updated version of the fuel suite.

A minor problem was recently identified with the Biophysical Settings layer for Mapping Zone 44. Users are advised to delete any local copies of this layer downloaded prior to October 20, 2008 and download the current version. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

Relative age was not set correctly in the VDDT models in the following eastern zones when they were first made available for download from www.landfire.gov: 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 37, 44, 45, 55, 56, 58, and 98. Relative age, according to LANDFIRE modeling rules, should be set to the inverse of the end age of the class (for example, if the class end age is 10 and relative age is used, it should be set to -10). In the aforementioned zones, relative age was set to the class end age rather than the inverse of the class end age. In some cases, an incorrect relative age setting could change the model results. The LANDFIRE team has corrected the relative age issue and redelivered corrected files. For zone 25 a new version of the model description document was released to correct inaccurate descriptive information related to this issue. For all other zones, only the VDDT database was changed. The error in the relative age setting did not affect any of the mapped products. Customers are advised to delete any local version 1 databases (that is, those that have "v1" in the file name) they may have downloaded and replace them with the version 2 databases (those that have "v2" in the file name) currently available from the LANDFIRE website.

A minor problem was recently identified with the Aspect, Elevation, Slope, Existing Vegetation Cover, Existing Vegetation Height, and Existing Vegetation Type layers for mapping zone 37. While affected acreage is very small, users are advised to delete any local copies of these six layers downloaded prior to September 6, 2007 and download the updated versions as of September 18, 2007. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.