Description: This spatial dataset was produced with the Wildfire Exposure Simulation Tool (WildEST), a cloud-based geospatial fire behavior characteristic simulation system. WildEST performs multiple deterministic simulations under a range of weather types (wind speed, wind direction, fuel moisture content) and weights those results based on weather type probabilities (WTP).HUImpact (HUImpact) represents the relative potential impact of fire to housing units at any pixel, if a fire were to occur. It is an index that incorporates the general consequences of fire on a home as a function of fire intensity and uses flame length probabilities from wildfire modeling to capture likely intensity of fire. HUImpact does not include the likelihood of fire occurring, and it does not reflect mitigations done to individual structures that would influence susceptibility. To create HUImpact, we first converted HUDen to housing unit count, then multiplied housing unit count per pixel by the cRPS raster. Next, we multiplied by the Exposure Type raster produced in Scott et al. (2024) to mimic the reduction of potential losses with distance from burnable land cover. Where buildings are directly exposed to wildfire, the value of Exposure Type is 1 and HUImpact values are unmodified. Where buildings are indirectly exposed to wildfire, the value of Building Exposure is between 0 and 1, so HUImpact is reduced with increasing distance from areas of direct exposure. We calculate HUImpact with the following equation: HUImpact = (HUDen * 0.0001) * cRPS * Exposure Type. Calculated values of HUImpact can be very small decimal numbers. Because HUImpact is a unitless index, we chose to convert those to integers while preserving the relative values and as much precision as possible. To produce the final integer version of the HUImpact raster, we multiplied the initial values by 1,000,000 and rounded to the nearest integer. Pixels where the HUDen raster is zero are NoData in the HUImpact raster.
Copyright Text: Primary data contact: Texas A&M Forest Service, Forest Resource Protection Division, Applied Technology Department. Send an email to TxWRAP-Support@tfs.tamu.edu for inquires. Visit www.TexasWildfireRisk.com for additional information.
This dataset was developed for the Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment by Pyrologix LLC (www.pyrologix.com), a subsidiary of Vibrant Planet (www.vibrantplanet.net).