This dataset provides global estimates of Burned Area (BA) obtained from the MODIS (Aqua and Terra) and Sentinel-3 OLCI satellite sensors. It is the primary product of the Fire Essential Climate Variable (ECV), as defined by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) programme. As fire both influences and is influenced by climate, this dataset is useful for studying climate change. Crucially, it provides information on burned biomass, which can be translated into greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other contaminants. Additionally, these BA products support studies of land cover change, as well as fire management and fire risk analyses.
This dataset is comprised of two BA products, one on a regular latitude-longitude grid, and the other as a pixel-level product. The gridded product represents the total burned surface area per grid cell, while the pixel-level product specifies the date on which the fire was first detected. Importantly, the gridded product also contains information on the type of land cover burned, using data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Land Cover dataset which is also available on the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS).
A companion dataset, also available through the CDS, provides data for the other two Fire ECV products: Active Fires and Fire Radiative Power. Alongside this, there are numerous complementary datasets available on the CDS, including surface albedo and aerosol properties.
Data v1.1 were produced on behalf of the C3S. The other versions, v5.0cds and v5.1.1 (the latter offering a longer time series and more mature algorithm) were developed as part of the European Space Agency Fire Climate Change Initiative Project (ESA Fire CCI). Two other deprecated versions remain available to download for transparency and traceability reasons but should not be used; please see the ‘Known Issues’ table in the Documentation tab for further information.
Data description
Data type | Gridded and pixel |
|---|---|
Projection | Regular latitude-longitude grid for gridded product |
Horizontal coverage | Global except for Antarctica |
Horizontal resolution | Gridded product: 0.25° x 0.25° Pixel product: 250m (v5.0cds and v5.1.1cds); 300m (v1.1) |
Vertical coverage | Surface |
Vertical resolution | Single level |
Temporal coverage | From 2001 to 2016 for v5.0cds From 2001 to 2019 for v5.1.1cds From 2017 to present for v1.1 |
Temporal resolution | Gridded product: 15 days (v5.0cds); monthly (v5.1.1cds and v1.1) Pixel product: Monthly |
File format | NetCDF4 |
Conventions | Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata Convention v1.6 and ESA CCI Data Standards [DSWG 2015] |
Versions | All versions are produced with the same processing chain. Versions 5.0cds and 5.1.1cds: Data from ESA CCI Version 1.1: Product developed specifically for C3S. Version 5.1cds and 1.0: Deprecated and replaced by versions 5.1.1cds and 1.1 respectively. Kept for traceability, transparency and reproducibility. |
Update frequency | Yearly |
Main variables
Name | Units | Description |
|---|---|---|
Burned area (Gridded product) | m2 | Total burned area within each pixel in the 15-days or monthly period. |
Burned area in vegetation class (Gridded product) | m2 | Sum of burned area by land cover classes; land cover classes are from CCI Land Cover (for version 5.0cds) or C3S Land Cover (for the rest of the versions). |
Confidence level (Pixel product) | % | Probability of detecting a pixel as burned. Possible values: 0 when the pixel is not observed in the month, or it is not burnable; 1 to 100 probability values when the pixel was observed. The closer to 100, the higher the confidence that the pixel is actually burned. |
Date of first detection (Pixel product) | Dimensionless | Day in which the fire was first detected. Possible values: 0 if the pixel is not burned; 1 to 366 day of the first detection when the pixel is burned; -1 when the pixel is not observed in the month; -2 when pixel is not burnable: water bodies, bare areas, urban areas and permanent snow and ice. |
Fraction of burnable area (Gridded product) | Dimensionless | The fraction of burnable area is the fraction of the cell that corresponds to vegetated land covers that could burn. The land cover classes are those from CCI Land Cover for version 5.0cds or C3S Land Cover for the rest of the versions. |
Fraction of observed area (Gridded product) | Dimensionless | The fraction of the total burnable area in the cell that was observed during the time interval and was not marked as unsuitable/not observable. The latter refers to the area where it was not possible to obtain observational burned area information for the whole time interval because of lack of input data (non-existing images for that location and period), cloud cover, haze or pixels that fell below the quality thresholds of the algorithm. |
Land cover of burned pixels (Pixel product) | Dimensionless | Land cover of the burned pixel, extracted from the CCI LandCover v1.6.1 for version 5.0cds or C3S Land Cover for the rest of the versions. Possible values: 0 when the pixel is not burned in the month, either because it was observed and not classified as burned, or because it is non burnable or was not observed; 10 to 180: land cover code when the pixel is burned |
Number of patches (Gridded product) | Dimensionless | Number of contiguous groups of burned pixels. |
Standard error (Gridded product) | m2 | Error on the estimation of burned area in each grid cell, based on the aggregation of the confidence level of the pixel product. |