NPS Park Conditions, Alerts & Data Scraper

Scrapes the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) API across seven resource types: parks, alerts, campgrounds, events, news releases, things to do, and visitor centers. Returns unified, flat records you can use without reading NPS API documentation.

A free NPS API key is required. You can get one instantly at nps.gov/subjects/developer/get-started.htm — no waiting, no approval, just an email address.

What It Scrapes

The NPS API sits behind developer.nps.gov/api/v1. Seven endpoints, one actor. You pick which resource types to fetch.

Why alerts matter: park closures, wildfire road conditions, and danger advisories change constantly. Trip planners, travel apps, and AI agents that need to know whether a park is actually accessible have to poll this data somehow. The alerts endpoint is the recurring-monitoring use case — daily or hourly runs filtered by park code or state.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
apiKey	string	—	Your free NPS API key
resourceTypes	array	["parks", "alerts"]	Endpoints to scrape. Options: parks, alerts, campgrounds, events, newsreleases, thingstodo, visitorcenters
parkCodes	array	(all parks)	Filter by NPS park codes (e.g. ["yose", "grca", "zion"])
stateCode	string	(all states)	Filter by two-letter US state code (e.g. CA, UT)
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum records to return across all resource types

Leave resourceTypes empty to fetch all seven types in one run.

Example Input

{
  "apiKey": "YOUR_NPS_API_KEY",
  "resourceTypes": ["alerts", "parks"],
  "stateCode": "CA",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Output

Each record has a resource_type field identifying its endpoint. Fields that don't apply to a given type are returned as empty strings.

Field	Type	Description
resource_type	string	parks, alerts, campgrounds, events, newsreleases, thingstodo, or visitorcenters
park_code	string	NPS unit code (e.g. yose, grca)
park_full_name	string	Full official park name
state_codes	string	Comma-separated state codes
title	string	Name or title of the resource
description	string	Description, abstract, or body text
category	string	Alert severity (Danger/Closure/Caution/Information), event type, etc.
url	string	NPS page URL for this resource
latitude	string	Latitude coordinate
longitude	string	Longitude coordinate
activities	string	Comma-separated activities available
topics	string	Comma-separated topics and themes
entrance_fees	string	JSON-encoded entrance fee list (parks)
operating_hours	string	JSON-encoded operating hours (parks, campgrounds, visitor centers)
image_url	string	Primary image URL
last_indexed	string	ISO timestamp of last NPS index update
phone	string	Contact phone (visitor centers, campgrounds)
directions_url	string	Link to directions
reservation_url	string	Reservation link (campgrounds, events)
is_reservation_required	string	Whether reservation required
cost	string	Fee or cost description

Sample Record (Alert)

{
  "resource_type": "alerts",
  "park_code": "grba",
  "title": "Winter Road Closures",
  "description": "Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive is closed at the Wheeler Peak Summit Trailhead due to snow.",
  "category": "Park Closure",
  "url": "https://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/conditions.htm",
  "last_indexed": "2026-05-19 00:00:00.0"
}

Sample Record (Park)

{
  "resource_type": "parks",
  "park_code": "alca",
  "park_full_name": "Alcatraz Island",
  "state_codes": "CA",
  "title": "Alcatraz Island",
  "description": "Alcatraz reveals stories of American incarceration, justice, and our common humanity...",
  "url": "https://www.nps.gov/alca/index.htm",
  "latitude": "37.82676234",
  "longitude": "-122.4230206",
  "activities": "Food, Wildlife Watching, Birdwatching, Museum Exhibits, Shopping",
  "topics": "Colonization and Settlement, Forts, Incarceration, Maritime",
  "operating_hours": "[{\"name\":\"Alcatraz Island\",\"standardHours\":{\"monday\":\"9:00AM - 6:30PM\",...}}]",
  "phone": "415-561-4900",
  "directions_url": "http://home.nps.gov/alca/planyourvisit/directions.htm"
}

Use Cases

Trip planning tools — pull parks and campgrounds filtered by state. Include entrance fees and operating hours directly in destination cards.

Closure monitoring — run daily against the alerts endpoint filtered by state. Filter output for category: "Park Closure" or "Danger" and route to push notifications or a status dashboard.

AI agents and RAG pipelines — NPS data is public domain. Feed current park conditions into retrieval-augmented generation for travel queries.

Geospatial and research projects — 470+ NPS units with coordinates, activities, topics, and fees in a clean flat format.

Rate Limits

The NPS API enforces rate limits per key. The actor paginates at 50 records per request with a ~1 second delay between calls to stay within NPS's documented guidance.

The default maxItems: 10 is intentionally conservative. Raise it for production runs. Set to 0 for an unlimited full-catalog pull.

Getting Your API Key

1. Go to nps.gov/subjects/developer/get-started.htm
2. Enter your name, email, and a brief use description
3. Key arrives by email within seconds

No approval process. No billing. Free tier is sufficient for most use cases.

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Data source: U.S. National Park Service API (developer.nps.gov). NPS data is in the public domain.