CAL FIRE Launches Online Viewer to Monitor Vegetation Burn Severity from California Wildfires; Interactive Public Mapping Tool Shows How Wildfires Have Impacted Vegetation Across the State

Sacramento – CAL FIRE’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP) has launched the new California Vegetation Burn Severity Online Viewer, an interactive public mapping tool that shows how wildfires have impacted vegetation across the state. This resource supports California’s commitment to transparency and wildfire resilience under Senate Bill 1101.

The Burn Severity Viewer displays burn severity data for all wildfires over 1,000 acres in California from 2015 to 2023. With this information easily accessible, landowners, planners, scientists, and the public are empowered to better understand postfire conditions, support ecological recovery, and plan for future fire resilience.

“This tool helps Californians see and understand how fire affects our landscapes,” said Chris Keithley, Assistant Deputy Director for FRAP. “It gives communities data to support efforts to plan prescribed burns, guide restoration work, and reduce future wildfire risk.”

The Burn Severity Viewer has several benefits to post fire recovery planning: 1) helps identify areas in need of reforestation or active restoration; 2) improves fire preparedness by assisting prescribed fire practitioners in planning treatments based on past burn severity and fuel changes; 3) enhances safety by offering insights for fire suppression planning and understanding how previous burns might influence future fire behavior; 4) informs habitat management by identifying changes to wildlife habitat and supporting conservation work.

This new tool features interactive maps showing burn severity across all land ownerships. Users can search fires by name, year, cause, or size; view multiple data layers, including fire perimeters and severity classifications; add custom data layers; and generate downloadable, georeferenced maps for field use. The viewer will be updated annually to include new qualifying fires.

Burn severity is measured using advanced remote sensing techniques and translated into both the Composite Burn Index (CBI) for forested areas and a continuous severity scale for all vegetation types. Data are derived from satellite imagery processed one year after each fire to account for vegetation recovery and delayed tree mortality.

The tool’s development is guided by a Technical Advisory Committee with experts from the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force – Science Advisory Panel, California Air Resources Board, NASA , U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S.D.A. Forest Service.

This marks Phase 1 of the project, focused on the online viewer with planned annual updates. Phase 2 will deliver downloadable datasets as CAL FIRE continues to refine methods, especially for non-forested landscapes.

The viewer is now live and available to the public online at https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/aff840a6cd8d4e49958f2b61982b5b11

For more information about CAL FIRE’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program go online to https://www.fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/fire-resource-assessment-program