Data for: Geographical Distribution of Exposure to Fires in the United States, 2004–2023

This repository contains the census tract–level dataset used to quantify temporal changes in population exposure to fires across the contiguous United States between 2004–2023. The dataset is harmonized to 2010 U.S. Census tract boundaries. Fire/smoke data are derived from NOAA/NESDIS Hazard Mapping System (HMS) [https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/products/land/hms.html#data]. Population data are derived from the U.S. Census Bureau [https://data2.nhgis.org/main]. This repository provides the processed, tract-level merged dataset. The raw HMS and Census source files are publicly available at the links above and are not redistributed here. Datasets: Main_Dataset.csv: Tract- and year-level dataset merging fire exposure metrics with population data, 2004–2023. See table below for column definitions. TIGER_Tracts_2010_nonwater.zip: 2010 Census tract boundaries (water area removed) used for spatial joins and to generate study figures. Analysis code is available at [https://zenodo.org/records/21542818]. Main_Dataset.csv data dictionary: Variable Description GEOID10 Geographical census tract identifier number (1-2 digit state FIPS + 3 digit county FIPS + 6 digit tract code) [numeric] STATE State name [character] STATEA State FIPS code [integer] COUNTY County name [character] COUNTYA County FIPS code [integer] TRACTA Census tract FIPS code [integer] Year Year in which the fire days were detected for a census tract [integer] Fire_Days Total number of days during which a fire was detected [integer] Population Total population of a census tract for the given year [numeric] AIAN_NH Non-Hispanic American Indian Alaska Native population [numeric] API_NH Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander population [numeric] Black_NH Non-Hispanic Black population [numeric] White_NH Non-Hispanic White population [numeric] HL Hispanic/Latino population [numeric] PersonDayExp Population * Fire_Days [numeric] Region U.S. Census Bureau regions of each tract [character] LATITUDE Latitude coordinates of the census tract (decimal degrees) [numeric] LONGITUDE Longitude coordinates of the census tract (decimal degrees) [numeric] Note: GEOID10, STATEA, COUNTYA, and TRACTA are stored as numeric types with leading zeros stripped (e.g., Alabama's state FIPS 01 appears as 1).