Interagency Forest Data Hub

Program Description: The Hub will expand data sharing and require annual reporting, including acres treated, in a common data repository. These coordinated information products would be rapidly and reliably made available to land managers and decision-makers. CAL FIRE is entering into a 3-year research grant agreement with the Climate and Wildfire Institute (CWI) to develop a Phase 1 Forest Data Hub. The priority for Phase 1 of the Forest Data Hub is to meet the information needs of the Million Acre Strategy.

Program Impact: The development and sustainment of the Hub will help ensure interagency assets are centrally accessible to all government scientists and land managers, university researchers, NGOs, and other users across the state, to ensure policy makers and land managers are using the most up-to-date data and analytics to inform policy, planning, monitoring, and reporting. Phase 1 of the Forest Data Hub will provide functionality to directly support the Million Acre Strategy and in doing so will address complex issues related to data sharing models, data governance, and security issues.

The key components of the Phase 1 Forest Data Hub include:

• Treatment tracking of fuel reduction and other vegetation management projects across State, Federal, and local entities
• Dashboards that provide for reporting status of metrics/indicators
• Support and access to data sets in the Regional Resource Kits
• Improved access to data analytics, planning applications and data visualization tools (i.e. Planscape, Pyrologix, etc.)
• Access to existing forest resources data sets that support the Million Acre Strategy

The Hub may host new and emerging technologies designed to inform forest management practices at multiple scales tied to the Regional Forest and Fires Capacity Program.

Resilience in Action: The Hub is developing an interagency forest treatment tracking system, which will capture projects funded through the State’s wildfire resilience funding as well as federal and state partners. This fulfils one of the key actions of the Forest and Wildfire Resilience Action Plan. The Phase 1 of the Forest Data Hub will provide support for regional planning to expand the pace and scale of fuel reduction projects and related vegetation management projects.