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GIS FAQs:
Virginia Wildfire Incidents, 1995 - 2001

fireinc

Metadata also available as

Frequently-anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

  1. How should this data set be cited?
  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    • West_Bounding_Coordinate: -83.748177
    • East_Bounding_Coordinate: -75.371433
    • North_Bounding_Coordinate: 39.423027
    • South_Bounding_Coordinate: 36.469274
  3. What does it look like?
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    • Beginning_Date: 1901
    • Ending_Date: 1912
    • Currentness_Reference: ground condition
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    • Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: vector digital data
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      • This is a Vector data set. It contains the following vector data types (SDTS terminology):
      • Entity point (9487)
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      • The map projection used is Lambert Conformal Conic.
        • Projection parameters:
          • Standard_Parallel: 37.000000
          • Standard_Parallel: 39.500000
          • Longitude_of_Central_Meridian: -79.500000
          • Latitude_of_Projection_Origin: 36.000000
          • False_Easting: 0.000000
          • False_Northing: 0.000000
        • Planar coordinates are encoded using coordinate pair
          • Abscissae (x-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 0.001024
          • Ordinates (y-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 0.001024
          • Planar coordinates are specified in meters
        • The horizontal datum used is North American Datum of 1983.
        • The ellipsoid used is Geodetic Reference System 80.
        • The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.000000.
        • The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257222.
      • Vertical_Coordinate_System_Definition:
        • Altitude_System_Definition:
          • Altitude_Datum_Name: N/A
          • Altitude_Resolution: 0.000010
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    • FID Internal feature number. (Source: ESRI) Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.
    • Shape Feature geometry. (Source: ESRI) Coordinates defining the features.
    • FRA_ID A unique ID field created by DOF to facilitate data joins and relationships. A summary function was run on this field to verify that duplicate values do not exist within it.
    • COUNTY_NAM The name of the county in which the incident occurred - as reported on the fire incident report at the time of data entry
    • Lat The latitude, in decimal degree format, as reported on the fire incident report. Some point locations were manually moved after intial QC tests and this field should not be considered the latitude of the point at its current location.
    • Long The longitude, in decimal degree format, as reported on the fire incident report. See "Latitude" field - values in this field may not truly reflect the features location.
    • FIRE_NAME The name of the fire as declared by DOF personnel. Only fires over 50 acres are typically named.
    • TOT_ACRES The total number of acres, forest or non-forest, burned during the wildfire incident
    • TOT_DMG The total monetary amount of damage (US Dollars) caused by the incident (frequently estimated)
    • TOT_SAV The total monetary value (USD-frequently estimated) of the homes, buildings or other personal property that fire control efforts directly protected
    • CLASS_DAY A 1 to 5 scale of fire danger on the day of the incident. 1 = low; 2 = moderate; 3 = high; 4 = very high; 5 = extreme.
    • DIRECTION Wind direction during the incident.
    • SPEED The wind speed during the incident
    • TEMP The air temperature during the incident
    • RH The relative humidity during the incident
    • GEN_CAUSE The general description of the incident's cause. 1=Lightning. 2=Campfire. 3=Smoking. 4=Debris Burning. 5=Incendiary. 6=Equipment Use. 7=Railroad. 8=Children. 9=Miscellaneous
    • SPF_CAUSE A more specific description of the incident's cause: a=Camper. b=Hunter.c=Fisherman. d=Person in Car. e=Smoking Game. f=Woodworkers. g=Dump. h=Prescribed Burn. i=Urban Burner. j=Rural Burner. k=Farmer. l=Hot Ashes. m=mental cases. n=Utility ROW. o=Welfare Case. p=Electric Fense. q=Land Clearing. r=Children Under 7. s=Juvinile under 18. t=Railroad. u=other
    • OTR_CAUSE Any elaborations on the cause of the fire
    • FTM_NameThe name of the DOF Mitigation team who reviewed and entered the data found in each record
    • NOTES Any notes made by the person indicated the "FTM_NAME" name field.
    • CNTY_TEST A positional quality control test. The county name from the fire incident report was compared to the county name in which the fire point plotted. Records that contained discrepancies in this comparison were coded 1.
    • WATER_TEST A positional quality control test. Records in this field were coded with a 1 if its point intersected polygon features from the National Hydrography Dataset where the feature type (FTYPE) <> 'Swamp/Marsh'
    • CO_SOURCE A value of "FI Report" denotes that the coordinates were entered as they appear on the Fire Incident Report. However, if those coordinates were missing or obviously erroneous and the written description on the fire report was sufficient, then MapTech's Terrain Navigator 2001 (coded as "TerNav"), Microsoft's TerraServer or TopoZone.com were consulted to obtain the coordinates.
    • ALLOWABLE After the quality control county test was conducted, it became evident that a significant number of the points that did not pass this test were in close proximity to the intended county. Points that were within 0.2 miles were later deemed acceptable. One hundred fifty-three points qualified for this allowable status and value of "Yes" denotes such points.
    • FailTest2 The date on which the fire incident report was submitted.
    • DATE_SUBM The date on which the fire was "put out" or extinguished.
    • DATE_OUT_1 The date on which data were entered into the database that directly generated this point layer.
    • DATE_REV_1 Some fires detected to have erreous locations were manually moved to an estimated location using the "location" information on the fire report. A value of 1 denotes such records.
    • LOC_MOVED The date on which the fire incident began
    • DATE_STA_1 Any notes made by the person indicated the "FTM_NAME" name field.
    • FIRE_YEAR The distance from the fire point to the nearest railroad feature in meters. This field was a component of the quality control tests run on this dataset. US Census Bureau 2000 TIGER railroad data used to calculate these figures.

Entity_and_Attribute_Overview: testing 2

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set?(may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • Virginia Department of Forestry
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
    • Virginia Department of Forestry
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    • Mindia Brown
      Virginia Department of Forestry
      GIS Manager
      900 Natural Resources Drive, Suite 800
      Charlottesville, VA 22903
      434.977.6555 (voice)
      434.296.2369 (FAX)

Why was the data set created?

Data are collected routinely to track occurrence of wildfire in Virginia. This dataset is used in various ways, including: 1) as an input layer in DOF's Wildfire Risk Assessment Model; 2) to identify areas of the state where fire incidents are more prevalent; 3) To examine wildfire occurrence with other geographic and tabular datasets in order to better understand the factors that contribute to wildfire incidents.

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
    • (source 1 of 1)
      • Type_of_Source_Media: Hardcopy Gazeteer maps
      • Source_Scale_Denominator: 1:100k
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    • (process 1 of 1)
      • See other fields in this metadata document, such as Abstract and Data Quality

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    • The attributes in this dataset are of moderate quality. Due to data entry error or omission, many records have empty or incorrect fields. Some effort was made to retrieve information from the original hardcopy report; however, most of the QA/QC was focused on correction of location.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?

    Most feature locations were generated from latitude/longitude coordinates as reported on Virginia Dept. of Forestry Wildfire Incident Reports. Most coordinates were obtained from Virginia Dept. of Transportation county maps (varying scale) with 1 minute grids/graticules or Delorme's Virginia Gazetteer (1:150,000). Most of the coordinates were reported in a dd mm.m' format, but several localities truncated the minutes figures to integers (zero significant figures). If the coordinate fields on the physical fire report were missing or easily identified as erroneous, the location of the fire was estimated from the written location description if that information was sufficient. This manual process was conducted using MapTech's Terrain Navigator (2001), Microsoft's TerraServer, TopoZone.com, ESRI's ArcExplorer or ArcGIS.

    Upon data entry completion, positional quality control tests were run on the fire incident points and when errors were detected, the corresponding records were flagged. Three attribute fields representing these QC tests are included in this final fire incident database. A value of 1 indicates that the fire failed that particular test. First, the county in which the fire incident point occurred was compared to the county specified on the fire incident report (field = "CNTY_TEST"). Secondly, fires points that plotted in water bodies were also flagged (field = "WATER_TEST")*. Lastly, the distance between railroad tracks** and fires reported to have been caused by a railroad was calculated. Those that were greater than 375 meters from a railroad were flagged (field = "RR_TEST"). A summary by county of these flagged records was then tabulated. Due to the large number of fires that failed the county test but were within close range of the intended county, those that were within 0.2 mile from the intended county were removed from the failing set (such fires are coded as "yes" in the "ALLOWABL" field.) If the percentage of detectably erroneous fires points in a particular county was less than than 10% error, these points were removed from this dataset. If the error pencentage was greater than 10% then the physical fire incident reports for the failing fires were obtained and an attempt was made to manually move these points to a more accurate location if the written "location" text on the report was adequate for doing so. For example, if a Fire Incident Report noted the location of the fire as "On the north side of the James River approximately ¼ mile west of the US29 bridge", its location could be reasonably estimated. On the contrary, if a fire's location was reported as "at the end of county route 624" and that route has two outlets, then its location could not be estimated and it remained as a part of the failing set. After this "correction" process, a summary on the errors by county was again run to verify that no county exceeded 10% error. All remaining erroneous fires/records (n=413 of 9900, 4.17%) were then deleted. The resulting, "final" database contains 9487 features/records. *The USGS/EPA National Hydrography Dataset waterbody data, excluding polygons where TYPE = 'Swamp/Marsh', was used in this QC test ** 2000 US Census Tiger data used in this QC test.
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths? N/A
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    • Practically every DOF Wildfire Incident Report for the years 1995 to 2001 inclusive was reviewed and entered into the database used to generate this layer. Some "mutual aid" fires, fires that were primarily managed by other agencies to which DOF provided assistance, were not documented on a DOF Wildfire Incident Report and are thus not included in this dataset.
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?

  1. Who distributes the data set?
    • Mindia Brown
      Virginia Department of Forestry
      GIS Manager
      900 Natural Resources Drive, Suite 800
      Charlottesville, VA 22903
      434.977.6555 (voice)
      434.296.2369 (FAX)
  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set?
    • Downloadable Data
  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?
    • This information is provided with the understanding that it is not guaranteed to be correct or complete and conclusions drawn from such information are the sole responsibility of the user. While The Virginia Department of Forestry (DOF) has attempted to ensure that this documentation is accurate and reliable, DOF does not assume liability for any damages caused by inaccuracies in these data or documentation, or as a result of the failure of the data or software to function in a particular manner. DOF makes no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or utility of this information, nor does the fact of distribution constitute a warranty.
  4. How can I download or order the data?
    • Availability in digital form:
      • Data format:
      • Size: 41.635
    • Cost to order the data:
  5. What hardware or software do I need in order to use the data set?
    • Data can be viewed using any GIS software capable of reading ESRI shapefile vector data.

Who wrote the metadata?

Generated by mp version 2.7.3 on Tue Aug 12 08:11:38 2003

Last modified: Friday, 07-Mar-2008 21:23:48 UTC