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Current linear fuel breaks in the sagebrush biome of the western United States (2020) attributed with relevant environmental variables

Metadata Updated: October 1, 2025

Unprecedented wildfire frequency fueled by invasive annual grasses threatens sagebrush habitats. To suppress fire and conserve sagebrush, land management agencies have installed ~10,000 km of fuel breaks across the sagebrush ecosystem. The ecological risks and benefits of creating fuel breaks for wildfire suppression are unquantified but must be evaluated to avoid accelerating sagebrush loss, annual grass invasion, and habitat degradation. To begin to assess ecological trade-offs, we characterized the contexts in which known fuel breaks exist. Weise et al. (2024) compiled the spatial footprints of fuel breaks across the western United States from the land treatment digital library (LTDL; Pilliod and Welty 2013), vegetation treatment areas (VTRT; Bureau of Land Management), and national fire plan operations and reporting system (NFPORS; Bureau of Land Management). For further description see Weise et al. 2024. We modified Weise's database and identified a total of 4,880 linear fuel break segments to which we appended additional environmental attributes that characterize linear fuel break placement on the landscape. This dataset considers physical characteristics of the spatial footprint of only linear fuel breaks and does not take into account any maintenance activities. Spatial duplicates have been removed but otherwise overlapping fuel breaks are retained.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 1, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 1, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-66aa5e85d34e20d4a03577d9
Data Last Modified 2024-12-23T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 71c7b341-66cc-4d7a-ac3c-72094439060b
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -124.1011, 34.4686, -103.2827, 49.3020
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a483e5158610ab09b72f8342771f1b32e3361a88e6ea512e21bef0dceccd8d39
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -124.1011, 34.4686, -124.1011, 49.3020, -103.2827, 49.3020, -103.2827, 34.4686, -124.1011, 34.4686}

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