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Share of the total land area burnt by wildfires each year

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Climate Change

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.
Share of the total land area burnt by wildfires each year
The total area consumed by is recorded for each fire event, even if fires occur in the same location multiple times. The 2024 data is incomplete and was last updated 26 July 2024.
Source
Global Wildfire Information System (2024); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 26, 2024
Next expected update
August 2024
Date range
2003–2024
Unit
%

Related research and writing

Featured image

Wildfires

Veronika Samborska and Hannah Ritchie

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The dataset provides a weekly comprehensive overview of fire activity and its environmental impact, incorporating data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) and satellite imagery from MODIS and VIIRS. It includes metrics such as the area of land burnt, cumulative burnt areas, carbon dioxide emissions from fires, cumulative carbon emissions, the number of fires, and cumulative fire counts.

Retrieved on
July 26, 2024
Retrieved from
https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/gwis.statistics/seasonaltrend
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Global Wildfire Information System

The FAOSTAT Land Use domain contains data on forty-four categories of land use, irrigation and agricultural practices and five indicators relevant to monitor agriculture, forestry and fisheries activities at national, regional and global level.

Data are available by country and year, with global coverage and annual updates.

Retrieved on
March 14, 2024
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/RL
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Land Use (2024).

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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.

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Reuse this work

  • 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: Share of the total land area burnt by wildfires each year”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Veronika Samborska (2024) - “Climate Change”. Data adapted from Global Wildfire Information System, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-total-land-area-burnt-by-wildfires-each-year [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); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Global Wildfire Information System (2024); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of the total land area burnt by wildfires each year” [dataset]. Global Wildfire Information System, “Seasonal wildfire trends”; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Land Use” [original data]. Retrieved July 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-total-land-area-burnt-by-wildfires-each-year