USFS Timber Harvests

What it shows

USFS Timber Harvests shows, in green over your basemap, where the Forest Service has logged, thinned or otherwise treated timber in National Forests. Tap a harvest unit for its sale and unit name, the activity (such as a clearcut, a thinning or a salvage cut), the year it was completed and its size in acres.

Hunters use it to find young forest, where new growth draws deer and elk in the years after a cut. It can also explain a clearing or logging road you didn't expect, and give you an idea of the ground there, which after a cut might be open slope, slash or dense regrowth.

On the map

Harvest units are filled in bright green. The fill is strongest when zoomed out and fades as you zoom in, so the basemap shows through. From zoom 10, units are outlined and labeled with the sale name, unit name and year.

The year is the federal fiscal year the work was finished in, which starts on October 1.

Where the data comes from

The Forest Service's timber harvest records from its FACTS database, published on the FSGeodata Clearinghouse. They go back decades. The Forest Service notes that they don't include every harvest, and harvests on private, state or other federal land aren't in them at all.

Coverage

National Forests and Grasslands across the United States.

Offline

USFS Timber Harvests is free on the web and on iPhone. With a membership, you can download the whole overlay in the iPhone app to use offline.