Generation and analysis of a new global burned area product based on MODIS 250 m reflectance bands and thermal anomalies

The FireCCI50 includes two types of BA files: monthly full-resolution continental tiles (doi: https://doi.org/cpk7, Chuvieco et al., 2018a) and biweekly global grid files at a degraded resolution of 0.25 degrees (doi: https://doi.org/gcx9gf, Chuvieco et al., 2018b). Both datasets are freely available through the Fire_cci website (https://www.esa-fire-cci.org, last access: October 2018), or through the CCI Open Data Portal (http://cci.esa.int/data, last access: October 2018). To receive updates on the products and information on new datasets, users are encouraged to register with the Fire_cci project at https://geogra.uah.es/fire_cci/ (last access: October 2018). ; This paper presents a new global burned area (BA) product, generated from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) red (R) and near-infrared (NIR) reflectances and thermal anomaly data, thus providing the highest spatial resolution (approx. 250 m) among the existing global BA datasets. The product includes the full times series (2001–2016) of the Terra-MODIS archive. The BA detection algorithm was based on monthly composites of daily images, using temporal and spatial distance to active fires. The algorithm has two steps, the first one aiming to reduce commission errors by selecting the most clearly burned pixels (seeds), and the second one targeting to reduce omission errors by applying contextual analysis around the seed pixels. This product was developed within the European Space Agency's (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, under the Fire Disturbance project (Fire_cci). The final output includes two types of BA files: monthly full-resolution continental tiles and biweekly global grid files at a degraded resolution of 0.25∘. Each set of products includes several auxiliary variables that were defined by the climate users to facilitate the ingestion of the product into global dynamic vegetation and atmospheric emission models. Average annual burned area from this product was 3.81 Mkm2, with maximum burning in 2011 (4.1 ...