Eastern United States wildfire hazard model: 2000-2009

The wildfire hazard models are a set of 12 raster geospatial products produced by the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station that are intended to be used in analyses of wildfire hazards in the region of New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Each raster represents the monthly hazard of a wildfire occurring within a 30 meter pixel as a probability. A statistical model for each month was parameterized with an integrated moisture index, a cumulative drought severity index for the month during the period 2000 to 2009, percent forest cover, and wildland-urban interface classifications to predict the probability of wildfire occurrence based on reported wildfires. Each model included 10 iterations and the raster products of average, minimum, maximum, median, and standard deviation of the predicted probability of a wildfire occurrence is provided. All raster values were converted to integers by multiplying by 10 to reduce file sizes. Therefore, the range of probabilities is 0 to 1000 for the modeled occurrence of a wildfire.
These products are intended to provide managers and planners with information related to the wildfire hazard based on reported incidents from 2000 to 2009. Local and daily weather conditions should be monitored to determine site specific burn susceptibility. Our monthly wildfire hazard data is intended to provide long-term trends of potential environmental conditions that coincided with reported wildfires.