Annual area burnt by wildfires
What you should know about this indicator
- Wildfires are detected through the use of satellite imagery obtained from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite). These satellite systems are capable of identifying thermal anomalies and alterations in landscape patterns, which are indicative of burning.
- The data provider is presently engaged in a global accuracy assessment and acknowledged that they might be underestimating the genuine impact of wildfires, primarily due to constraints imposed by the spatial resolution of the sensors they employ.
Related research and writing
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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- All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Annual area burnt by wildfires”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Veronika Samborska (2024) - “Climate Change”. Data adapted from Global Wildfire Information System. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires [online resource]How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Global Wildfire Information System (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
Global Wildfire Information System (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Annual area burnt by wildfires” [dataset]. Global Wildfire Information System, “Seasonal wildfire trends” [original data]. Retrieved November 21, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires