Monitoring Trends and Burn Severity (MTBS): Monitoring wildfire activity for the past quarter century using landsat data

Abstract

The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project is mapping the extent, size, and severity of all large fires greater than 1,000 acres in the west and 500 acres in the east over the conterminous United States (CONUS), Alaska, and Hawaii. In 2012 the project reached a milestone, completing the mapping for all fires between 1984 and 2010. The MTBS project produces geospatial and tabular data using a consistent protocol for fire trend analysis at a range of spatial, temporal, and thematic scales. This paper reviews the objectives of the MTBS project, describes the data sets and information provided, and presents results of the analysis of the 1984-2010 MTBS data set for the United States.