Open Science & Data

Making science open, accessible, and actionable

Science achieves its greatest impact when it’s open, inclusive, and equitable. Our Open Science program makes research products openly accessible to accelerate collaboration, trust, and innovation across the communities shaping climate resilience.

Open Science is a cornerstone of how we work—and a growing community of practice. VPDC’s open datasets are already being used across the U.S., from developing wildfire-resilience curricula to evaluating fuel treatments and designing safer parks. As we expand our open data catalog and tutorial library, we invite others to contribute to this shared effort to advance climate resilience through transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration.

Want to contribute to VPDC’s Open Science work? Contribute or Partner With Us →

Access Our Open Science Resources

Explore open datasets, trusted external resources, and practical guidance materials that support climate resilience planning and research across the communities we serve.
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Open Data

Curated datasets created by VPDC and partners to support wildfire, forest, and climate resilience analysis.

Explore datasets →

External Data Resources

A curated set of trusted, third-party open data portals for wildfire, forests, and climate resilience work.

Browse Resources →

Tutorials

Short walkthroughs and examples to help you understand and apply VPDC datasets in real projects.

View Tutorials →

Explore & Download Data

Validated datasets for forest restoration, wildfire research, and community resilience. Rigorously developed, openly licensed, and ready to download. Many include data stories to help you get started.

Crown Fire Probability
Wildfire
CONUS
Where are crown fires most likely? This dataset highlights the probability of canopy-driven fire across the U.S. under a full range of weather conditions.

Updated: Jun 25, 2025

Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG)

30 meters

EPSG: 5070

Includes 1 datasets

VibrantVS Canopy Height Model (CHM)
Vegetation
Regional
This dataset provides a small validation sample of canopy height data for select areas across the western U.S. It includes GeoTIFF files for NAIP, LiDAR, and VibrantVS CHM.

Updated: Feb 19, 2025

GeoTIFF

0.5 meters

EPSG: 6931

Includes 3 datasets

This bundle includes three co-registered layers—NAIP imagery, a LiDAR-derived canopy height model, and the VibrantVS AI canopy height model—packaged together for side-by-side comparison and model validation.
Fire Severity (Parks et al., 1984–2023)
Wildfire
CONUS
Wildfire severity surface for large fires from 1984 to 2023 in the western United States, derived using the Parks et al. method and severity metrics from MTBS, RAVG, and related datasets.

Updated: Sep 13, 2024

GeoTIFF

30 meters

EPSG:

Includes datasets

Cumulative Fire Count (1950–2023)
Wildfire
CONUS
Counts how many times each 30 m pixel has burned between 1950 and 2023 across the western United States, based on authoritative wildfire perimeter and occurrence datasets.

Updated: Sep 13, 2024

GeoTIFF

30 meters

EPSG:

Includes datasets

Wildfire Ignition Probability (Western & Southeastern U.S.)
Wildfire
Regional
Spatial ignition probability surfaces for the Western and Southeastern U.S., estimating the likelihood of human-caused, lightning-caused, and composite wildfire ignitions at 120 m resolution.

Updated: Jan 30, 2024

COG (GeoTIFF)

120

EPSG: 5070

Includes 6 datasets

This bundle contains six ignition-probability layers, grouped by region: three for the western U.S. and three for the southeastern U.S. (human-caused, lightning-caused, and composite).
pFRID 2023 – Fire Regime Interval Departure
Wildfire
Multi-State
Probabilistic estimates of fire regime departure for 17 western U.S. states, representing how contemporary fire intervals differ from modeled historical conditions.

Updated: Sep 13, 2023

GeoTiff

EPSG: 5070

Includes 3 datasets

This bundle includes three pFRID layers: a statistically masked surface showing only significant deviations, a Vibrant Planet analytical approach, and a Safford et al.–based departure surface for comparison.
LDSim Landscape Dynamics Dataset
Vegetation
Local
Spatial outputs from the LDSim landscape dynamics model, including Subbasins, Geophysical Units (GPUs), and Biophysical Classes (BPCs).

Updated: Feb 09, 2022

Shapfile, CSV

EPSG: 3310

Includes 3 datasets

This bundle contains three spatial layers: Subbasins, Geophysical Units (GPUs), and Biophysical Classes (BPCs). Produced for the LDSim study watersheds in the western U.S., each representing a different scale for assessing vegetation change and fire regime departure.
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What We’re Building Next

We’re actively developing new ways to share science, including interactive tools and organized access to partner publications. As these offerings reach a stable, public-ready state, they’ll appear here.
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Open Tools

In development

Interactive tools and models to help explore scenarios, compare regions, and support forest and wildfire resilience planning.

Open Publications

In development

A curated set of trusted, third-party open data portals for wildfire, forests, and climate resilience work.