Accessing and extending the utility of United States forest inventory data

The Forest Inventory and Analysis program of the United States Forest Service has been operational since the 1930's. Data collected prior to 1977 is unavailable in electronic format. More recent data is available for downloading from the Internet. Reporting tools such as the forest inventory mapmaker Web-application have been developed to generate population estimates of forest area, numbers of trees, timber volume, growth, removals and mortality for a wide variety of stand and/or tree characteristics. The fuel treatment evaluator (FTE) Web-application links forest inventory data to both fire hazard and socio-economic geo-spatial data. Linking this information aids planners in identifying potential fire hazard hotspots and evaluating alternative fuel treatment options. The FTE program can also generate inputs to systems such as the spatial resource support system and growth and yield programs such as the Forest Vegetation Simulator.