Making Public Climate Data More Usable—and More Resilient
At Stand, we build models to understand and mitigate wildfire and climate risk. Our work depends on a deep ecosystem of publicly available environmental data—a remarkable body of research and infrastructure developed over decades by federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, USGS, NOAA, and the Department of the Interior.
We rely on this data every day to support high-resolution wildfire simulations, terrain mapping, and vegetation modeling across the U.S. Some of our most critical sources include:
Wildfire risk and exposure data from the U.S. Forest Service
LiDAR and GIS mapping data from the U.S. Geological Survey
Weather and atmospheric models from NOAA
Vegetation and fuel maps from the LANDFIRE program
These datasets are the backbone of climate risk science in the U.S.
But here’s the reality: access to this data isn’t something we can take for granted.
In recent months, several federal research and data programs have faced significant funding uncertainty or cuts. While much of the existing data remains public and available today, our team is increasingly concerned about its long-term stability and reliability. When access to foundational data is at risk, so too is the collective progress of climate science and resilience work across sectors.
A New Layer of Stewardship
At Stand, we’ve been working behind the scenes to aggregate, clean, and centralize these datasets as part of our internal pipeline. We’ve built tools to ingest and standardize the raw files—many of which are distributed across government websites, FTP servers, and GIS portals—so our team can work with them more efficiently and consistently.
Now, in light of recent shifts, we’re preparing to share that infrastructure more broadly.
This effort isn’t about replacing the invaluable work done by public agencies—who still will continue to need public support in conducting their extraordinary missions. It’s about leveraging our work to support the broader research and nonprofit ecosystem by increasing redundancy, improving usability, and helping ensure long-term access to these vital resources.
Who This Is For
We’re especially focused on supporting:
Academic researchers working on environmental or climate science
Nonprofits and NGOs focused on adaptation, land use, or risk reduction
Public agencies building resilience tools for communities
Outside of recent events, if you’ve ever struggled to locate or work with federal datasets, this initiative is being built with you in mind.
What’s Next
This project will roll out in phases. Over the coming months, we’ll begin opening access to the key public datasets we rely on—starting with topographic and wildfire-related data, and gradually expanding to support a broader range of climate resilience work.
We’re also building simple tools for searching, filtering, and previewing datasets—no advanced querying required.
Along the way, we’re interested in connecting with collaborators and feedback partners to help shape the roadmap, and help us determine how, when, and what to release. If you’re interested in testing early access, contributing ideas, or helping guide development—we’d love to hear from you.
We’re also eager to connect with researchers who recently transitioned out of public agencies and are looking to stay involved in meaningful, mission-driven work. We will be looking to work with citizen scientists as part of this mission to stand up a repository for the public benefit.
Public data is one of the most powerful tools we have to face the climate crisis. Let’s make sure it stays accessible, usable, and impactful—together.
📬 Get in touch
If you’re a researcher or organization interested in collaborating, drop us a line at datacommons@standinsurance.com.
— The Stand Applied Science Team
