Global estimation of burned area using MODIS active fire observations
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Abstract
Abstract. We present a method for estimating monthly burned area globally at 1° spatial resolution using Terra MODIS data and ancillary vegetation cover information. Using regression trees constructed for 14 different global regions, MODIS active fire observations were calibrated to burned area estimates derived from 500-m MODIS imagery based on the assumption that burned area is proportional to counts of fire pixels. Unlike earlier methods, we allow the constant of proportionality to vary as a function of tree and herbaceous vegetation cover, and the mean size of monthly cumulative fire-pixel clusters. In areas undergoing active deforestation, we implemented a subsequent correction based on tree cover information and a simple measure of fire persistence. Regions showing good agreement between predicted and observed burned area included Boreal Asia, Central Asia, Europe, and Temperate North America, where the estimates produced by the regression trees were relatively accurate and precise. Poorest agreement was found for southern-hemisphere South America, where predicted values of burned area are both inaccurate and imprecise; this is most likely a consequence of multiple factors that include extremely persistent cloud cover, and lower quality of the 500-m burned area maps used for calibration. Application of our approach to the nine remaining regions yielded comparatively accurate, but less precise, estimates of monthly burned area. We applied the regional regression trees to the entire archive of Terra MODIS fire data to produce a monthly global burned area data set spanning late 2000 through mid-2005. Annual totals derived from this approach showed good agreement with independent annual estimates available for nine Canadian provinces, the United States, and Russia. With our data set we estimate the global annual burned area for the years 2001-2004 to vary between 2.97 million and 3.74 million km2, with the maximum occurring in 2001. These coarse-resolution burned area estimates may serve as a useful interim product until long-term burned area data sets from multiple sensors and retrieval approaches become available.
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To date, global-scale understanding of fire is largely limited to the annual extent of burning as detected by satellites.
“To date, global analyses have used satellite-derived active fire and burned area data to describe the extent, interannual variability, and seasonality of burning (3, 7–9).”
From Defining pyromes and global syndromes of fire regimes (2013) · cites this paper as [8]
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References 40 · Cited by 635
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Arino, O. and Rosaz, J.: 1997 and 1998 world ATSR fire atlas us- ing ERS-2 ATSR-2 data, Proceedings of the Joint Fire Science Conference, Boise, Idaho, 15-17 June 1999, edited by: Neuen- schwander, L. F., Ryan, K. C., and Golberg, G. E., Boise: Uni- versity of Idaho and the International Association of Wildland Fire, 177-182, 1999.
- Loboda, T. and Csiszar, I.: Estimating burned area from AVHRR and MODIS: validation results and sources of error. Proceed- ings of the Current Aspects of Rem. Sens. Earth Space Conf., Moscow, Russia, 16-18 November, 2004.
- J. Rem. Sens., 19(14), 2623-2638, 1998.
- Authors
- Giglio, L., van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Collatz, G. J., & Kasibhatla, P.
- Affiliations
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Venue
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
- Publisher
- Copernicus GmbH
- Published
- 2006-03-28
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 957-974
- ISSN
- 1680-7316 (ISSN-L)
- 1680-7324
- OpenAlex
- W2099964454
- Cited by
- 635
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 36 · 2013: 34 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 34.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Atmospheric chemistry and physics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Digital Academic REpository of VU University Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNG04GD89G, NNG04GK49G)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Remote Sensing in Agriculture
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality › Fire Detection and Safety Systems
- Keywords
- burned area estimation, MODIS active fires, regression trees, vegetation cover, tree cover, deforestation, cloud cover, fire emissions
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