Forest Service

Vision

The Forest Service (FS) will communicate FS alerts, events, and news as well as additional authoritative information about campgrounds, trails, recreation areas and visitor centers via AI Personal Assistants in order to better serve our visitors. Sample questions that digital assistants could answer using existing data include:

• What National Forests are in [state]?
• Are there any active alerts at the [?] National Forest?
• Do I need a recreation pass for [recreation area]?
• What events are happening today at [?] National Forest?
• Where are there campgrounds on the [?] National Forest?
• Which campgrounds are accessible at [?] National Forest?
• Does [campground] accept 40' long RVs?
• What are the hours for [visitor center] at [?] National Forest?
• What are the trail conditions for [? Trail] on the [?] National Forest?

Resources

The Forest Service has an API and documentation live and accessible at http://usda.github.io/RIDB/.

Register for an API key here.

API resources include:

• Alerts - Alerts communicate information about hazardous, potentially hazardous, or changing conditions that may affect a visit to a national forest. Alert data includes the type of alert, title, description, and optional link to additional information.
• Campgrounds - Campground data includes location, contact, operating hours, site amenities, fee, and accessibility information for campgrounds in national forests. At least one representative photo of each campground is available. Forests have multiple campgrounds of a variety of types (i.e., family, group, equestrian, developed or primitive); others have none.
• Events - Event data includes information about the date, time, fee, and description of events taking place in national forests.
• Facilities - Facilities basics data includes address, location, contact, operating hours, description, and entrance fee/pass information for each forest.
• News Releases - News release data includes a title, abstract, and link to national park news releases, as well as an optional image.
• Recreation Areas – Recreation Area data includes name, reservation url, description, contact number.
• Tours - Tours basic data includes tour name, location, directions, description, tour length.
• Trails - Trails data includes name, location, description, length, type, condition, contact number.
• Visitor Centers - Visitor center data includes location, contact, and operating hours information for visitor centers and other visitor contact facilities in national parks At least one visitor center is listed for each Forest; some Forests with multiple visitor centers may include information about more than one.