Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/BurnedArea_Emissions_AK_YT_NWT_1812
BurnedArea_Emissions_AK_YT_NWT_1812·v2·dataset

Where fires started, burned and emitted (Alaska, Yukon, NWT)

ABoVE: Ignitions, Burned Area, and Emissions of Fires in AK, YT, and NWT, 2001-2018
biosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 multiple
In plain English

What it measures. Daily records of where boreal forest fires ignited, how much land they burned, and how much carbon they released, across Alaska and Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories from 2001 to 2018, with uncertainty estimates included.

How it's made. Created by merging official fire-perimeter records with MODIS satellite measurements of surface reflectance and active fires, combined with field-based estimates of how much carbon burns, at 500-meter resolution.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers understand northern wildfire patterns, their carbon emissions, and how a warming climate is reshaping boreal fire activity.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS › FIRE ECOLOGY › FIRE MODELSBIOSPHERE › ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS › FIRE ECOLOGY › FIRE OCCURRENCEATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › EMISSIONSLAND SURFACE › SOILS › ORGANIC MATTERBIOSPHERE › ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS › FIRE ECOLOGY › FIRE DISTURBANCELAND SURFACE › SOILS › CARBON › SOIL ORGANIC CARBON (SOC)

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2001-01-01 → 2018-12-31
  • Measured byAqua (MODIS) · MODELS (Computer)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-167, 51.6346, -99.9838, 79.2618
  • Formatsmultiple
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

This dataset provides estimates of daily burned area, carbon emissions, and uncertainty, and daily fire ignition locations for boreal fires in Alaska, U.S., and in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, Canada. The data are at 500 m resolution for the 18-year period from 2001-2018. Burned area was retrieved from combining fire perimeter data from the Alaskan and Canadian Large Fire Databases with surface reflectance and active fire data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6. Per-pixel carbon consumption was estimated based on a statistical relationship between field estimates of pyrogenic consumption and several environmental variables. To derive the carbon consumption estimates, the approach from Alaskan Fire Emissions Database (AKFED) was updated and extended for the period 2001-2018. Fire weather variables, temperature, and the drought code complemented remotely sensed tree cover and burn severity as model predictors. Fire ignition location and timing were extracted from the daily burned area maps.

Get the data

burnedarea_emissions_ak_yt_nwt_1812_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="BurnedArea_Emissions_AK_YT_NWT_1812",
    version="2",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.