Pre- and post-fire forest structure and composition photo-interpreted data for four sub-watersheds in Eastern Washington, USA

Wildfires are affecting millions of acres in western U.S. forests. Landscape scale restoration and climate adaptation thus require integrating the “work” of wildfires with mechanical, prescribed fire, and other treatments. Yet, how wildfires shape landscape-level patterns of composition and structure relative to historical and future (climate change adapted) ranges of variation (HRV-FRV) is not well understood. We quantified how four recent fires in eastern Washington, USA, moved landscapes towards and away from landscape-level HRV-FRV envelopes using a landscape evaluation framework and interpretation of pre- and post-fire aerial photography. Four sub-watersheds (Hydrologic Unit Code 12) that burned in 2014, 2015, or 2017 were selected for pre- and post-fire departure assessments: Benson Creek, Scatter Creek, South Fork Boulder Creek, and West Fork Teanaway Creek. This data publication includes data representative of 2012-2017 conditions for each of these four sub-watersheds: photo-interpreted pre- and post-fire vegetation attributes such as overstory and understory canopy cover, tree size class, species composition, number of canopy layers, snag abundance, potential vegetation type, and spatial pattern classes. Additional metrics derived from these photo-interpretations are also included, such as forest structure class, physiognomic type, cover type, insect and diseases vulnerability ratings, and habitat classes for focal species.
The purpose of this study was ecological research.
For more information about this study and these data, see Churchill et al. (2022).