Montana Wildfires on Managed Land
Description
Wildfires can be hugely destructive natural disasters. However, they are also incredibly important for the lifecycle of many forest ecosystems. Wildfires serve as a reset for many ecosystems, clearing out detritus and allowing an opportunity for some seeds to flourish with less competition from older individuals. Without wildfires, the world may lose some species that need them in order to reproduce. However, wildfires can also be damaging to personal property, economic resources, and people’s ability to access clean drinking water and food. This data set explores the connections between land management and the occurrence of wildfires in the state of Montana
Files
Steps to reproduce
Recent Wildfire Data was digitized by copying information from Inciweb’s Wildfires page into a google sheet, and importing that data into ArcGIS Pro. Then, the Montana Managed Areas layer was imported into ArcGIS Pro from ArcGIS online. From the combination of this data, the protected area and level of protection that each fire was located in was determined and inputted into the new combined data table.