These data are associated with fire rings mapped by Wilderness Restoration crews throughout Yosemite. Data include vegetation condition rating, distance to water, distance to trail, campsite size, elevation, location code, funding source, and more.

It is extremely important that these data be viewed in categories according to the 'Work_Done' field, as some of these campsites/fire rings still exist, whereas others have been removed.

These data do not necessarily represent the extent of all campsites within the park. There are parts of the park the crew has never visited (AreaSurveyed files associated with this geodatabase indicate where campsite treatments have occurred). The following factors influence the quantity and quality of fire rings throughout the park, as well as these data, and assumptions that may or may not be derived from this data set:

• Frequency of restoration (annual revisits to a locaation vs. 5 years since last visit)

• Skill of restoration crews (NPS crew vs. volunteer work weeks)Visitor usage (high vs. low-use areas)

• Weather (e.g., snow or rain may cause crews to leave an area early)

• Time (e.g., the crew may be able to concentrate on a given area more one year than the next)

• Efficacy of education shared by wilderness rangers when visitors receive their backcountry permit

• Frequency of backcountry ranger visits/contacts in a location

For example, places like the popular Benson Lake are regularly visited by rangers who reduce and maintain fire rings and talk to backpackers about Leave No Trace practices. Kerrick Meadow, on the other hand, is visited less often by rangers and therefore does not benefit from their attention and educational efforts, which results in more inappropriate campsites in terms of size and location.

These data do not substantially differentiate between a campsite and a fire ring.Treatment options focus on the fire ring, but 'Size' and 'Veg_Class' fields refer to the overall impact of the campsite area. Consequently, campable areas above 9600 feet where no fire rings were encountered remain under-represented in this data set. Generally speaking, unless campsite impacts at these elevations occurred too close to water, these areas are neither mapped nor treated.

All records contain a site ID, which is newly generated each year, depending on where the crew begins work in a given area. A unique ID was added in 2016 (called RecordID) for a particular fire ring because it may be called LYCA01 one year and LYCA57 the next, though it exists in the same location. The rationale behind not assigning a unique SITE ID to a particular fire ring initially and then updating the record in subsequent years was that fire rings can occur very close together, and with GPS error, it might be very difficult for a crew to ascertain which site they are working. Utilizing the new RecordID and buffering points like the Invasive Plant Program does with their point data may be a useful way of capturing fire rings close together in the future. A formal analysis of these data has not occurred as of 2016 and it is recommended that a review be conducted of whether present attributes collected are still useful for the purposes of this project.

Many of the records from pre-2006 were digitized using paper maps or UTM coordinates transcribed from data sheets or the old Wild Rest Access database. This is especially true for SCA campsite treatments, as this crew was not given a GPS unit until 2008 or 2009. The bulk of this digitization occurred in 2010; digitized points were not marked as such at that time (as they are now). Consequently, confidence is greater with data collected 2006 and after.

The majority of records between 2001 and 2005? were in NAD 27 in the Access database and were projected into NAD 83 when they were exported to GIS. All records are now in NAD 1983 though there are some records that do not have UTM coordinates.

Some of these data were differentially corrected and some were not. GPS unit accuracy has improved significantly in recent years, and the Wild Rest program started finding data exported from the unit to be more accurate than corrected versions. Consequently, the Wild Rest program has not differentially corrected data since 2011 or 2012.

The 'Good_Camp' field did not exist pre-2012. It refers to areas that are good for the crew to camp for a variety of reasons - they are likely bigger, further off-trail, and away from popular visitor camping or destination locations. SCA does not have this field liksted on their data sheets, so at least up until 2016, this field reads 'Null.'