This dataset provides vegetation community characteristics, soil moisture, and biophysical data collected in 2017 from 11 study sites in the ABoVE Study area. The 11 study areas contained 28 sites that were burned by wildfires in 2014 and 2015, and 10 unburned sites in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. Burned sites included peatland and upland. These field data include assessment of burn severity, vegetation inventories, ground cover, diameter and height for trees and shrubs, seedling and sprouting cover, soil moisture, and depth of unfrozen soil. Plot sizes were 10 m x 10 m with smaller subplots for selected measurements. Similar data were collected for these sites in the years 2015-2019 and are available in related separate datasets. Field data are provided in CSV format. The dataset includes digital photographs (in JPEG format) of vegetation conditions at sampling sites.