This is a landscape level GIS coverage of large fires within the Yukon, spanning a period from 1946 to present. Original polygon size was limited to 200 hectares, when the first edition of this dataset was completed in 1997. Smaller fires are now being included, especially near communities. It is important to note that in most instances, fire perimeters only were mapped. This means that unburned areas within the perimeter are not accounted for, either in an ecological context or in annual area burned summaries. More recent fires mapped, with the aid of satellite technology may include large unburned patches.Although the temporal scale of the coverage goes back to late 1940's, Yukon-wide fire detection capability was not fully developed until the 1960's. In addition to this, access to regular aerial mapping was not readily available until that same time period. As a result many fires in the 40's and 50's were simply not recorded or poorly mapped, particularly in the north. For that reason, care must be taken when drawing conclusions from these data as it relates to the early years.
Distributed from GeoYukon by the Government of Yukon . Discover more digital map data and interactive maps from Yukon's digital map data collection.
For more information: geomatics.help@yukon.ca
