Glacier National Park Fire Atlas

Project details
Glacier National Park has traditionally gathered and stored information on fires in the Park in various formats and in various places. Historically, the Park collected fire data in a single-file system that was redundant, used a single master source not maintained during the incident, and that was updated only after the end of fire season. The National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis worked with the Park staff to design and develop a geodatabase that models the Park’s complete fire history – a fire atlas. Other data objects (vegetation, weather, and fuels) are associated with the database with definitions of their relationship to fire history. The geodatabase has:
•    Spatial and non-spatial data in the same location
•    Simultaneous entry of the spatial component (point location) of the fire and fire information
•    Access for multiple users from one centralized location at the same time
•    Custom tools enabling users to update fire information
•    Sophisticated rules and relationships between data objects

The Park fire staff provided NCLFA with fire data: 1970-2003 fire points (as provided to FPA); 1970-2003 fire polygons (as provided to FPA); FIRESUM database (current non-spatial fire history archive in a DOS-based program). GNP GIS staff provided: 1910-1969 fire points; 1970-2003 fire points (not same as FPA); 1970-2003 fire polygons (not same as FPA). In order to compile some historical fire data, the NCLFA staff had to review old photos and written documents. NCLFA compared each record manually and FIRESUM was updated to reflect most accurate and complete data. The geodatabase incorporates fire points (ignition/report point), final fire perimeters, and attributes for each fire in the Park from 1910 to 2003. The NCLFA also created a custom ArcGIS toolbar specifically for populating and manipulating data within the Fire Atlas geodatabase.

Project development
Glacier National Park fire managers are required to input, update, and maintain fire information in multiple local and national databases. This data is also integrated into various decision support models, some of which produce outputs that need to be reintegrated into the data stream. GNP staff are continuing to update the Fire Atlas with recent fire information and, in the future, the atlas could be used for geospatial analysis activities related to fire in Glacier National Park. 

Project application
The fire atlas geodatabase provides a scalable architecture for deploying GIS functionality outside of the park (e.g., web-based applications) and serves as a demonstration of this architecture to park managers of other disciplines.

Tool download: Fire Atlas tools and documentation 

Principal Investigators: Don Helmbrecht and Lee Macholz
Project Staff: Craig Comstock, Aden Fulford
Project Partners: National Park Service, Glacier National Park