The USGS is investigating how lidar can be used to assess wildfire risk in the wildland urban interface. Lidar data, building composition, and landscape characteristics were used to quantify the prefire conditions that increase or decrease the likelihood of structure ignition and consumption in a destructive wildfire event. The Black Forest Fire of 2013 near Colorado Springs, Colorado, will be used to illustrate how prefire aerial lidar data can characterize vegetation and fuels within the home ignition zone and determine structure locations under a closed forest canopy. With unprecedented resolution, these lidar methods have great potential to model and identify areas at high risk to wildland fire hazards in the wildland urban interface.
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U.S. Department of the Interior