Annual area burnt by wildfires by region
What you should know about this indicator
Wildfires are detected through the use of satellite imagery based on the NASA MCD64 MODIS product which offers global assessments of burned areas and fire occurrences. Although widely used, this product is known to consistently underestimate both the extent of burned areas and the frequency of fires. However, in terms of historical trends, it stands out as the most comprehensive dataset, offering the longest time series compared to other available options.
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Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
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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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 by region”, 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://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260325-171315/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.html [online resource] (archived on March 25, 2026).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 (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
Global Wildfire Information System (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Annual area burnt by wildfires by region” [dataset]. Global Wildfire Information System, “Global Monthly Burned Area” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260325-171315/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.html (archived on March 25, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-area-burnt-by-wildfires-gwis.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear