A wildfire hazard and risk model was developed in a week-long workshop to test the feasibility of using existing resource data and combined expert assessment to help address the increasing concern over wildfires in the Western United States. The goal was to utilize readily-available resource data, translated into a GIS format, to develop and illustrate relative hazard and risk assessments in a format that would be useful to decision makers. This paper discusses the characteristics of the study area, the data that were assembled, and the methods utilized. The results of the hazard and risk assessments are discussed in the papers that follow.