U.S. Forest Service Nationwide Ranger District Map

[Paysonscanner]

This a.m. I was doing research for a Utah federal database page submission. I needed some maps of ranger districts to line up repeaters with a forest with 3 nets. My Dad wanted to help me so he Googled "National Forest Ranger District Maps." The image tab has lots of good maps showing national forests and the boundaries of ranger districts. Trouble with them is not every national forest has a small map with ranger district locations and sometimes the maps Google shows are not current. So dad thought he would look at the list of sites under the "All" tab of the search and struck gold. What he found was a nationwide map of all the national forests with boundary lines showing the area and name of each ranger district. It looks like it is current, as some changes are less than 6 months old and they are shown correctly.

Here is the home page of the website,

National Forest Administrative Boundary Map

Why, pray tell, is this map useful? If you listen to the Forest Service you can understand traffic better. Each ranger district has a base station and in some cases individual ranger districts or groups of districts are on different radio frequency nets. The callsigns of each unit are based on the number each district is assigned on the forest so this helps to eventually figure that out. Dad has a list of 3 Forest Service region's numbering system so maybe I will post that someday.

The map is not intended to be used to find geographical features, lakes, mountains, canyons but just shows the boundaries.

Nearby national wildlife refuges and National Park Service units are shown as well but minus the boundaries.

Way to go Dad! Dad is a retired Forest Service civil engineer, he pulled the pin in 1987 at 60 years old and 37 years of service. Now if he can find a map showing National Park Service ranger districts in the large NPS units that have them that would help.

 

[BCFlash]

Thank you for these maps and your BLM ones as well. All of your work compiling this data with your Dad is appreciated.

 

[Paysonscanner]

Thank you for these maps and your BLM ones as well. All of your work compiling this data with your Dad is appreciated.

You are welcome! It's been almost 6 months since I posted this link and no one seemed to be showing interest. Now that I'm back home again I'm going to try to post the admin numbering system for, I think it is 3 USFS regions. Knowing ranger district boundaries and number is essential for deciphering USFS comms.

One other tip is that National Forest Visitor Maps sell for about $8-$12 each and have ranger district boundaries on them. Dad just found out that the very handy "National Forest Map Store," where every USFS map product could be ordered online, has been closed. So it's back to having to drive to Forest Supervisor's Offices, Ranger District Ranger Stations and visitor centers. This is a real shame. Dad used it to keep his USFS map collection up to date. Given the expense and new difficulty of ordering them, you have to be a frequent listener or visitor to purchase them.