Current linear fuel breaks in the sagebrush biome of the western United States (2020) attributed with relevant environmental variables

Unprecedented wildfire frequency fueled by invasive annual grasses threatens sagebrush habitats. To suppress fire and conserve sagebrush, land management agencies have installed ~10,000 km of fuel breaks across the sagebrush ecosystem. The ecological risks and benefits of creating fuel breaks for wildfire suppression are unquantified but must be evaluated to avoid accelerating sagebrush loss, annual grass invasion, and habitat degradation. To begin to assess ecological trade-offs, we characterized the contexts in which known fuel breaks exist. Weise et al. (2024) compiled the spatial footprints of fuel breaks across the western United States from the land treatment digital library (LTDL; Pilliod and Welty 2013), vegetation treatment areas (VTRT; Bureau of Land Management), and national fire plan operations and reporting system (NFPORS; Bureau of Land Management). For further description see Weise et al. 2024. We modified Weise's database and identified a total of 4,880 linear fuel break segments to which we appended additional environmental attributes that characterize linear fuel break placement on the landscape. This dataset considers physical characteristics of the spatial footprint of only linear fuel breaks and does not take into account any maintenance activities. Spatial duplicates have been removed but otherwise overlapping fuel breaks are retained.