LANDFIRE’s (LF) 2001 Canopy Height (CH) product describes the average height of the top of the canopy for a stand. A spatially-explicit map of canopy height supplies information for fire behavior models such as FARSITE (Finney 1998) to determine the starting point for embers, calculate wind reductions, and compute the volume of crown fuels. In FARSITE, canopy characteristics are used to compute shading, wind reduction factors, spotting distances, crown fuel volume, spread characteristics of crown fires and incorporate the effects of ladder fuels for transitions from a surface to crown fire.
CH is derived from the LF Existing Vegetation Height (EVH) product using the LANDFIRE Total Fuel Change Tool (LFTFC). Forested EVH values are reclassified from the five LANDFIRE EVH codes to represent the midpoint of the classification. CH values are represented in meters times 10 starting with 25 and ending at 500. Where EVH is not forested or the tree height is considered to be part of the surface fuel CH receives a value of 0.