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Distribution of burned area (a–c), fuel consumption (d– f) and dominant land cover type (g–i), all binned as a function of fire return periods and net primary productivity (NPP) for the three study regions (South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia). Bins with burned area below 500 km 2 yr −1 are masked in white. Abbreviations of land cover type stand for cropland (Cr), woody savanna (WSa), savanna (Sa), grassland (Gr) and shrubland (Sh).
Source publication
Landscape fires occur on a large scale in (sub)tropical savannas and
grasslands, affecting ecosystem dynamics, regional air quality and
concentrations of atmospheric trace gasses. Fuel consumption per unit of area
burned is an important but poorly constrained parameter in fire emission
modelling. We combined satellite-derived burned area with fire...
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... each continent we assessed whether most fires occurred in productive or low-productivity systems, and whether short or long fire return periods were most common (Fig. 5a-c). Then we explored the distribution of fuel consumption as a function of productivity and fire return periods (Fig. 5d-f), followed by the possible role of land cover type in explaining these patterns (Fig. 5g-i). We found that biomass burning on the three continents occurred under very different conditions in terms of productivity and ...
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... each continent we assessed whether most fires occurred in productive or low-productivity systems, and whether short or long fire return periods were most common (Fig. 5a-c). Then we explored the distribution of fuel consumption as a function of productivity and fire return periods (Fig. 5d-f), followed by the possible role of land cover type in explaining these patterns (Fig. 5g-i). We found that biomass burning on the three continents occurred under very different conditions in terms of productivity and fire return periods. Within the South American study region most fires occurred in relatively productive savannas (NPP of ...
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... whether most fires occurred in productive or low-productivity systems, and whether short or long fire return periods were most common (Fig. 5a-c). Then we explored the distribution of fuel consumption as a function of productivity and fire return periods (Fig. 5d-f), followed by the possible role of land cover type in explaining these patterns (Fig. 5g-i). We found that biomass burning on the three continents occurred under very different conditions in terms of productivity and fire return periods. Within the South American study region most fires occurred in relatively productive savannas (NPP of 800-1600 g DM m −2 yr −1 ) and were characterized by relatively long fire return periods ...
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... similar. In more humid regions, how- ever, fuel moisture may limit fuel consumption by low- ering fire spread and the combustion completeness (Stott, 2000;van der Werf et al., 2008). In our three study regions (South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia) fires oc- curred under very different conditions in terms of NPP and fire return periods (Fig. 5a-c), partially as a result of the different distributions of NPP across the study regions. In South America most burned area occurred in regions with fire return periods between 3 and 8 years and intermedi- ate productivity (800-1600 g DM m −2 yr −1 ). In Africa the vast majority of burned area was found in areas with short fire return ...
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... are of human origin (Archibald et al., 2012;Scholes and Archer, 1997;Scholes et al., 2011;Stott, 2000) and the differences between the continents are expected to be partly the result of different management practices. Overall, a pattern of in- creasing fuel consumption towards more productive regions and longer return periods was observed ( Fig. 5d-f). Conse- quently, fuel consumption in Africa, with short return pe- riods, was relatively low compared to Australia or South America. However, increases in fuel consumption with in- creasing time between fires and NPP were far from linear and other drivers also played a large role (e.g. Shea et al., ...
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... more arid regions, we found a clear difference between ecosystems where most fuel exists of grasses opposed to re- gions that were classified as shrubs. In Africa, the regions with NPP below 500 g DM m −2 yr −1 are dominated by sa- vannas or grasslands, while in Australia these regions are classified as shrubs (Fig. 5h and i). In the specific case of Australia, much of the interior is actually dominated by hum- mock grasslands (rather than shrubs), grasses that function- ally act like shrubs (Australian Native Vegetation Assessment, 2001) and are therefore classified as being shrublands in the University of Maryland classification. Grasses may form ...
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... as being shrublands in the University of Maryland classification. Grasses may form well-connected fuel beds, resulting in short (often an- nual or biennial) fire return periods ( Archibald et al., 2013;Beerling and Osborne, 2006; Scholes and Archer, 1997), while fire return periods in shrublands (or hummock grass- lands) were generally longer (Fig. 5). But on top of the dif- ferences in fire return periods between these low-productivity ecosystems, the grass species that were dominant in most of Africa showed a rather slow fuel build-up compared to shrubs or the Australian hummock grasses even when fire re- turn periods and productivity were similar (Fig. 5e and f). A possible ...
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... grass- lands) were generally longer (Fig. 5). But on top of the dif- ferences in fire return periods between these low-productivity ecosystems, the grass species that were dominant in most of Africa showed a rather slow fuel build-up compared to shrubs or the Australian hummock grasses even when fire re- turn periods and productivity were similar (Fig. 5e and f). A possible explanation for the relatively slow fuel build-up in African grasslands and savannas as opposed to Australian hummock grasslands and shrublands could be grazing by livestock or wildlife and human management ( Savadogo et al., 2007;Scholes et al., 2011). Shea et al. (1996) report a large impact of wildlife, ranging from ...
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... the more productive savannas marked differences were observed between the different continents ( Fig. 5). Africa was unique when it comes to its short fire return periods, even in highly productive ecosystems. In African savannas of intermediate productivity (500-1500 g DM m −2 yr −1 ), fuel build-up with time appeared slow compared to the other con- tinents. These differences may originate from differences of grazing pressure or the ...
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... cover density and biomass over the study period, while in some regions there is tree cover loss due to decreased fire return periods or land use change over our relatively short study period, while other ar- eas are experiencing increases in tree cover ( Wigley et al., 2010). A clear example was South America, where the appar- ent fuel build-up ( Fig. 5d) appears largely driven by high fuel consumption in active deforestation areas (Fig. 4;see Hansen et al., 2013). The effect of human management on fuel loads was also clearly visible in Africa's agricultural areas (e.g. Nigeria), where fuel loads were typically low (Figs. 4, 5e and ...
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Citations
... It has been shown (e.g., Andela et al. (2016)) that fire return periods are influenced by fuel (vegetation) build up over several years; surface conditions are therefore expected to be different the year before or the year after a fire Total burned area during the fire season by year, corresponding to the total area of pixels identified as burned in the MCD64A1 data set. In northern hemisphere Africa (NHA, blue), a decline of 2.1 × 10 4 km 2 per year is observed p = 1.2 × 10 6 ) . ...
We present an analysis of 20 years of fire and albedo data in Africa. We show that, in the mean, the sub‐Saharan Africa post‐fire surface albedo anomaly can be parameterized using an exponential recovery function, recovering from a decrease of 0.019±0.001 immediately after a fire with a time constant of 34.0±0.4 days. Although the magnitude of albedo changes shows large spatial and temporal variations and a strong land cover type (LCT) dependency, exponential recovery is observed in the majority of LCTs. We show that fires cause long‐term surface brightening, with an Africa‐wide albedo increase of (9.5±0.2)×10−4 10 months after a fire, but we find this is driven almost exclusively by slow vegetation recovery in the Kalahari region, confirming previous findings. Using downward surface shortwave flux (DSSF) estimates, we calculate the fire‐induced surface radiative forcing (RF), peaking at 5±2 Wm⁻² in the burn areas, albeit with a significantly smaller effect when averaged temporally and spatially. We find that the long‐term RF in months 5–10 after a burn averaged over the continent is negative because of the brightening observed. Despite a well‐documented reduction in burning in Africa in the recent decades, our temporal analysis does not indicate a decrease in the overall fire‐induced RF likely due to large interannual variability in albedo anomaly and DSSF data. However, we observe a decline in the short‐term RF in southern hemisphere Africa, driven by both a reduction in fires and changes in LCT distributions.
... Implementing biomass energy systems in remote communities not only boosts energy security but also fosters local economic development and diminishes reliance on imported fuels [10]. Adopting biomass fuel for both urban and remote energy supply programs is crucial for establishing a more sustainable and robust energy landscape while addressing the challenges posed by climate change [11,12]. Numerous studies have examined the potential of utilizing biomass fuel for the operation of cogeneration and multigeneration systems to meet energy needs across various applications. ...
... In the operation of the CCP process, the organic fluid enters the generator at point 24, undergoes a temperature increase through heat recovery with stream 9, and then passes through throttling valve 1 (TV1) at point 11. Subsequently, stream 12 In the SOEC setup, freshwater at point 63 is pressurized to point 24 before passing through Heat Exchanger 1 (HE1) for heating. Further heat recovery processes occur through an Electric Steam Generator (ESG), HE2, HE3, and an Electrical Heater (EH). ...
... Besides, the exergy efficiency and exergy destruction ratio of the component k are formulated in the following [51]: Table 4 contains the exergy equations for the established components. From the thermodynamic point of view, the capacity of products, including the net output power, (Ẇ net ), cooling output (Q cooling ), and liquefied hydrogen production rate (LHPR) are represented as follows [51]: × 86400 (12) where ρ H2 is the density of the hydrogen. ...
... Some papers have tried to provide a more ecological-sound interpretation of satellite retrieved burn severity, using a Random Forest model to estimate CBI from satellite data (Parks et al., 2019), others have combined passive optical with lidar data to detect the relevance of post-fire legacies in vegetation height and biomass (Hoffman et al., 2018;Sato et al., 2016), or in the distribution of snags of different sizes (Vogeler et al., 2016). Fuel consumption has been estimated from active fire and fire radiative power (Andela et al., 2016) or from vegetation optical depth obtained from microwave data . ...
... In middle-to-high productive areas, fire activity is mostly associated to high temperatures and seasonal droughts (Pausas and Ribeiro, 2013), while in low productivity areas the rainfall of the previous year (and therefore the available fuel to burn) is the main factor of fire activity (Krawchuk and Moritz, 2011). On the other hand, extreme fire seasons are associated with exceptionally dry conditions, such as those linked to El Niño events in South East Asia (Andela et al., 2016;Lohberger et al., 2018), or a combination of heatwaves and long droughts in temperate forest, as it was the case of recent anomalous fire seasons of Australia (Bowman et al., 2020b) and Portugal (Turco et al., 2019). Even though the recent burned area trends show a global decrease in fire-affected areas due to agricultural expansion, increased livestock densities and increase net primary productivity Forkel et al., 2019;Zubkova et al., 2019), fire impacts are expected to increase in the future due to climate change, although their effects will vary regionally depending on changes in precipitation patterns. ...
... Since BB emissions spread over most of the global vegetated areas [11,12], the integration of orbital remote sensing and modelling is the most effective approach to estimate them from regional to global scales [12][13][14][15]. BB emission estimation using orbital remote sensing and modelling follows the relationship between burned biomass and the emission factor (EF-mass emi ed of a given species per mass of dry ma er burned). ...
Biomass burning (BB) emissions negatively impact the biosphere and human lives. Orbital remote sensing and modelling are used to estimate BB emissions on regional to global scales, but these estimates are subject to errors related to the parameters, data, and methods available. For example, emission factors (mass emitted by species during BB per mass of dry matter burned) are based on land use and land cover (LULC) classifications that vary considerably across products. In this work, we evaluate how BB emissions vary in the PREP-CHEM-SRC emission estimator tool (version 1.8.3) when it is run with original LULC data from MDC12Q1 (collection 5.1) and newer LULC data from MapBiomas (collection 6.0). We compare the results using both datasets in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado biomes during the 2002–2020 time series. A major reallocation of emissions occurs within Brazil when using the MapBiomas product, with emissions decreasing by 788 Gg (−1.91% year−1) in the Amazon and emissions increasing by 371 Gg (2.44% year−1) in the Cerrado. The differences identified are mostly associated with the better capture of the deforestation process in the Amazon and forest formations in Northern Cerrado with the MapBiomas product, as emissions in forest-related LULCs decreased by 5260 Gg in the Amazon biome and increased by 1676 Gg in the Cerrado biome. This is an important improvement to PREP-CHEM-SRC, which could be considered the tool to build South America’s official BB emission inventory and to provide a basis for setting emission reduction targets and assessing the effectiveness of mitigation strategies.
... Satellite-derived fire emissions estimates based on FRP are often systematically lower than those obtained by fuel consumption modelling based on burned area, and this effect is stronger under canopy cover than in open landscapes (Roberts et al., 2018). To explore the magnitude of this effect, a scaling factor derived from comparison of satellite data to FC data in the GFCD by (Andela et al., 2016) was applied to simulate the FRP detected by the satellite sensor. To constrain FRP estimates, the uncertainty of the field-derived fuel consumption estimates was applied to the modeled FRP (95% confidence interval). ...
... Black dotted lines 95% confidence interval for the estimate of fuel consumption. Blue solid line: FRP estimated applying the correction factor ofAndela et al. (2016), blue dotted lines: bounds of this FRP estimate defined by 95% confidence interval of field-derived FC. ...
Dry broad-leaved seasonal forests are widespread in Southeast Asia. They are characterized by drought deciduous tree species, which are adapted to a severe dry season that lasts several months each year. Forest fires are frequent in this vegetation type. To further understanding of fire behavior and fire impact, a series of fire field experiments implemented in the Huay Kha Khaeng (HKK) Wildlife Sanctuary (Uthai Thani Province, Thailand) between 2008 and 2016 was analyzed. A fire behavior model based on the Canadian Fire Behavior Prediction System (Prometheus) was calibrated using the experimental data for the deciduous dipterocarp forest fuel type. The model was then tested on a remotely observed large wildfire in Thailand. Our results confirm the slow fire spread and low to moderate fire intensities observed for this forest type in earlier studies. The fire spread model performs well compared to satellite observations but tends to overestimate area burned and fuel consumption and, consequently, fire emissions when used in air pollution models. Our results indicate that widely used global databases may substantially overestimate fuel consumption and hence fire emissions for this forest type.
... The approach can lack accurate spatial and temporal allocations of the statistical and survey data. On the other hand, the remotely sensed observations (e.g., MODIS, SEVIRI, GOES) have been used to quantify the biomass burning emission [23,25,27,33,35,38,40,42,[50][51][52]. The top-down emissions of biomass burning are estimated, multiplying several parameters of (i) burned areas, (ii) biomass load (FRP, fire radiative power), (iii) combustion efficiency (or conversion factor), and (iv) emission factors [53,54]. ...
In the study, crop residue burning (CRB) emissions were estimated based on field surveys and combustion experiments to assess the impact of the CRB on particulate matter over South Korea. The estimates of CRB emissions over South Korea are 9514, 8089, 4002, 2010, 172,407, 7675, 33, and 5053 Mg year−1 for PM10, PM2.5, OC, EC, CO, NOx, SO2, and NH3, respectively. Compared with another study, our estimates in the magnitudes of CRB emissions were not significantly different. When the CRB emissions are additionally considered in the simulation, the monthly mean differences in PM2.5 (i.e., △PM2.5) were marginal between 0.07 and 0.55 μg m−3 over South Korea. Those corresponded to 0.6–4.3% in relative differences. Additionally, the △PM10 was 0.07–0.60 μg m−3 over South Korea. In the spatial and temporal aspects, the increases in PM10 and PM2.5 were high in Gyeongbuk (GB) and Gyeongnam (GN) provinces in June, October, November, and December.
... Several factors could contribute to producing such bias in emission inventories based on either satellite-detected burned areas (e.g., van der Werf et al., 2017) or fire radiative power (FRP, e.g., Ichoku and Ellison, 2014). The burned-area-based emission inventories comprise uncertainties in satellite 85 detection of burned areas and fuel load (Randerson et al., 2012;Andela et al., 2016), while FRP-based emission datasets are largely affected by the translation of FRP into rates of biomass combustion (Kaiser et al., 2012). In addition, both emission datasets rely on uncertain emission factors converting burned biomass to trace gas or aerosol emissions (Stockwell et al., 2015). ...
Global models are widely used to simulate biomass burning aerosols (BBA). Exhaustive evaluations on model representation of aerosol distributions and properties are fundamental to assess health and climate impacts of BBA. Here we conducted a comprehensive comparison of Aerosol Comparisons between Observation project (AeroCom) model simulations with satellite observations. A total of 59 runs by 18 models from three AeroCom Phase III experiments (i.e., Biomass Burning Emissions, CTRL16, and CTRL19) and 14 satellite products of aerosols were used in the study. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm was investigated during the fire season over three key fire regions reflecting different fire dynamics (i.e., deforestation-dominated Amazon, Southern Hemisphere Africa where savannas are the key source of emissions, and boreal forest burning on boreal North America). The 14 satellite products were first evaluated against AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) observations, with large uncertainties found. But these uncertainties had small impacts on the model evaluation that was dominated by modeling bias. Through a comparison with Polarization and Directionality of the Earth’s Reflectances (POLDER-GRASP) observations, we found that the modeled AOD values were biased by -93–152 %, with most models showing significant underestimations even for the state-of-art aerosol modeling techniques (i.e., CTRL19). By scaling up BBA emissions, the negative biases in modeled AOD were significantly mitigated, although it yielded only negligible improvements in the correlation between models and observations, and the spatial and temporal variations of AOD biases did not change much. For models in CTRL16 and CTRL19, the large diversity in modeled AOD was in almost equal measures caused by diversity in emissions, lifetime, and mass extinction coefficient (MEC). We found that in the AEROCOM ensemble, BBA lifetime correlated significantly with particle deposition (as expected) and in turn correlated strongly with precipitation. Additional analysis based on Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aerosol profiles suggested that the altitude of the aerosol layer in the current models was generally too low, which also contributed to the bias in modeled lifetime. Modeled MECs exhibited significant correlations with the Ångström Exponent (AE, an indicator of particle size). Comparisons with the POLDER-GRASP observed AE suggested that the models tended to overestimate AE (underestimated particle size), indicating a possible underestimation of MECs in models. The hygroscopic growth in most models generally agreed with observations and might not explain the overall underestimation of modeled AOD. Our results imply that current global models comprise biases in important aerosol processes for BBA (e.g., emissions, removal, and optical properties) that remain to be addressed in future research.
... GFED was developed primarily for global studies of climate and fire interactions, reflected by GFED's large spatial resolution [16]. According to regional studies, GFED is reliable for estimating emissions from large fires in specific locations, but has difficulties representing small fires and fires in certain regions [20,21]. Emissions estimates included in GFEDv4s are more reliable than estimates created by previous versions of GFED due to the numerous updates, but the remaining uncertainties are significant and challenging to quantify. ...
Wildland fires produce smoke plumes that impact air quality and human health. To understand the effects of wildland fire smoke on humans, the amount and composition of the smoke plume must be quantified. Using a fire emissions inventory is one way to determine the emissions rate and composition of smoke plumes from individual fires. There are multiple fire emissions inventories, and each uses a different method to estimate emissions. This paper presents a comparison of four emissions inventories and their products: Fire INventory from NCAR (FINN version 1.5), Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED version 4s), Missoula Fire Labs Emissions Inventory (MFLEI (250 m) and MFLEI (10 km) products), and Wildland Fire Emissions Inventory System (WFEIS (MODIS) and WFEIS (MTBS) products). The outputs from these inventories are compared directly. Because there are no validation datasets for fire emissions, the outlying points from the Bayesian models developed for each inventory were compared with visible images and fire radiative power (FRP) data from satellite remote sensing. This comparison provides a framework to check fire emissions inventory data against additional data by providing a set of days to investigate closely. Results indicate that FINN and GFED likely underestimate emissions, while the MFLEI products likely overestimate emissions. No fire emissions inventory matched the temporal distribution of emissions from an external FRP dataset. A discussion of the differences impacting the emissions estimates from the four fire emissions inventories is provided, including a qualitative comparison of the methods and inputs used by each inventory and the associated strengths and limitations.
... Aunque el área quemada a nivel mundial disminuyó entre 1998 y 2015, los incendios que ocurren en regiones tropicales se han convertido en un problema importante dado el alto impacto que tienen en la estructura y función de estos ecosistemas tan amenazados por múltiples factores de estrés. Si bien la mencionada reducción en el área quemada se asocia principalmente con las sabanas y pastizales tropicales (Andela, et al., 2016), el área mundial quemada se ha desplazado a regiones con más cobertura boscosa, lo que indica un mayor uso del fuego para la tala y quema de bosques y para el manejo agrícola en los trópicos (Andela, et al., 2016). La interacción del cambio climático con la topografía natural y las condiciones del viento, así como con otras actividades antropogénicas, pueden resultar en incendios graves y prolongados que afectan grandes áreas forestales y reducen el almacenamiento de carbono forestal (Brando, et al., 2019), una degradación inducida por los incendios que en el trópico puede representar cerca del 69 % de la pérdida total de carbono (Baccini, et al., 2015). ...
... Aunque el área quemada a nivel mundial disminuyó entre 1998 y 2015, los incendios que ocurren en regiones tropicales se han convertido en un problema importante dado el alto impacto que tienen en la estructura y función de estos ecosistemas tan amenazados por múltiples factores de estrés. Si bien la mencionada reducción en el área quemada se asocia principalmente con las sabanas y pastizales tropicales (Andela, et al., 2016), el área mundial quemada se ha desplazado a regiones con más cobertura boscosa, lo que indica un mayor uso del fuego para la tala y quema de bosques y para el manejo agrícola en los trópicos (Andela, et al., 2016). La interacción del cambio climático con la topografía natural y las condiciones del viento, así como con otras actividades antropogénicas, pueden resultar en incendios graves y prolongados que afectan grandes áreas forestales y reducen el almacenamiento de carbono forestal (Brando, et al., 2019), una degradación inducida por los incendios que en el trópico puede representar cerca del 69 % de la pérdida total de carbono (Baccini, et al., 2015). ...
Colombia ha venido avanzando en el monitoreo anual de los incendios forestales y el área quemada y su relación con las variaciones en un mismo año y de un año a otro de las condiciones climáticas que los propician, así como de las causas antrópicas que los generan. A nivel mundial se habla de cambios en el régimen de incendios, no obstante, en Colombia todavía no se ha determinado si la tendencia en el tiempo es de aumento en la extensión, tamaño y frecuencia de los incendios. En este estudio se presenta un análisis comparativo de las dos primeras décadas del siglo XXI en términos de los patrones espaciales y temporales de las áreas quemadas, con el objetivo de analizar cambios en algunos parámetros del régimen de incendios en el país (extensión total, tamaño, configuración espacial de los parches quemados y frecuencia). Se utilizó la información del producto de área quemada mensual Fire_cci v5.1 derivado del sensor MODIS a una resolución de 250 m para mapear mensualmente todos los parches detectados como quemados o las cicatrices de quemas desde enero del 2001 hasta marzo del 2020. El área quemada presentó una gran variabilidad anual y en el curso del año, siendo febrero y enero los meses más afectados por incendios. El área total quemada en un mes ha tendido a disminuir en la segunda década del siglo XXI, pero el tamaño promedio de los parches quemados ha aumentado de 188,75 ha en promedio en la primera década a 196,2 ha en la segunda década, durante la cual también se han detectado un mayor número de fragmentos. En términos de frecuencia, se encontró una gran variabilidad con zonas, especialmente las bajas, donde ha aumentado la frecuencia en la segunda década comparada con la primera. Se confirmó un cambio en algunas propiedades del régimen de incendios en Colombia, ya que, aunque el área total afectada disminuyó y los incendios menores se redujeron, el patrón encontrado indica una clara tendencia a más incendios de mayor tamaño y frecuencia.
... Despite this limitation, the single-channel method algorithm has become the de facto standard for the quantitative characterizations of active fires and has been implemented for both geostationary and polar-orbiting missions and is now available for the geostationary Meteosat Spinning Enhanced Visible Infra-Red Imager (SEVIRI) sensor [18], Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) -E (East) and GOES-W (West) [19,20] and Himawari-8 [21] as well as the polar orbiting sensors Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) ( [22,23], MODIS [24] and Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) [25,26]. The relationship between FRP and fuel consumption is used to drive the fire emissions component of the Copernicus Global Atmosphere Monitoring Services (CAMS) [27] and has been used to estimate fuel consumption per unit area burned [28][29][30]. This latter approach can be implemented through integration of (ideally continuous) FRP observations to yield the total fire radiative energy (FRE) over a fire event, which is then converted to fuel consumption (FC) through application of scaling factors, and finally divided by the burned area associated with the event. ...
... To derive fuel consumption (FC), we used temporal integration to estimate total fire radiative energy for a particular fire event following the conversion of FRE to fuel consumption described in [16], enhancing the conversion factor from FRE to FC as proposed by [28]. This enhancement is applied as FC derived from satellite FRP tends to underestimate true FC [28,29]. ...
... To derive fuel consumption (FC), we used temporal integration to estimate total fire radiative energy for a particular fire event following the conversion of FRE to fuel consumption described in [16], enhancing the conversion factor from FRE to FC as proposed by [28]. This enhancement is applied as FC derived from satellite FRP tends to underestimate true FC [28,29]. Temporal integration is derived from Meteosat FRP retrievals, based on an approach first presented by Boschetti and Roy for MODIS [30], and implemented for Meteosat by Roberts [29]. ...
Fire behavior is well described by a fire’s direction, rate of spread, and its energy release rate. Fire intensity as defined by Byram (1959) is the most commonly used term describing fire behavior in the wildfire community. It is, however, difficult to observe from space. Here, we assess fire spread and fire radiative power using infrared sensors with different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions. The sensors used offer either high spatial resolution (Sentinel-2) for fire detection, but a low temporal resolution, moderate spatial resolution and daily observations (VIIRS), and high temporal resolution with low spatial resolution and fire radiative power retrievals (Meteosat SEVIRI). We extracted fire fronts from Sentinel-2 (using the shortwave infrared bands) and use the available fire products for S-NPP VIIRS and Meteosat SEVIRI. Rate of spread was analyzed by measuring the displacement of fire fronts between the mid-morning Sentinel-2 overpasses and the early afternoon VIIRS over-passes. We retrieved FRP from 15-min Meteosat SEVIRI observations and estimated total fire ra-diative energy release over the observed fire fronts. This was then converted to total fuel con-sumption, and, by making use of Sentinel- 2-derived burned area, to fuel consumption per unit area. Using rate of spread and fuel consumption per unit area, Byram’s fireline intensity could be derived. We tested this approach on a small number of fires in a frequently burning West African savanna landscape. Comparison to field experiments in the area showed similar numbers between field observations and remote-sensing-derived estimates. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first di-rect estimate of Byram’s fireline intensity from spaceborne remote sensing data. Shortcomings of the presented approach, foundations of an error budget, and potential further development, also con-sidering upcoming sensor systems, are discussed.