FireSense: Soil and Live Fuel Moisture Content, Sedgwick Reserve, CA, USA, 2023

This dataset provides pre-fire soil moisture and soil temperature profiles, and Live Fuel Moisture Content (LFMC) of six vegetation species collected at Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County, California, between July 20 and October 2, 2023. Soil moisture and soil temperature were measured using a METER TEROS 11 probe at standardized depths within soil pits dug near the time-of-flight overpass. LFMC for six plant species were collected via repeat visits to the same locations. Plant species include QUDO = Quercus douglasii (Blue Oak), QUAG = Quercus agrifolia (Coast Live Oak), SALE = Salvia leucophylla (Purple Sage), ARCA = Artemisia californica (California Sagebrush), PISA = Pinus sabiniana (California gray pine), and BUCK = Eriogonum fasciculatum (California Buckwheat). LFMC is computed as: ((wet weight - dry weight)/ dry weight)*100. These measurements capture pre-fire baseline conditions and serve as a robust ground truth for calibrating airborne remote sensing instruments such as NASA's Scanning L-band Active Passive (SLAP) and Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR). The data are provided in text and NetCDF formats.