Wildfires are an important phenomenon at the global scale, as they are responsible for large amounts of economic and environmental damage. The entire product has been computed until the present and is available under the umbrella of the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS).

This work describes the data produced by a data mining process using MODIS burnt area product Collection 6 (MCD64A1). Here, we present and test a data mining work flow to create a global database of single fires that allows for the characterization of fire types and fire regimes worldwide.

This high level of abstraction is very valuable it makes it possible to characterize fires by types (either size, spread, behaviour, etc.). These data do not provide information like fire size, fire spread speed, how fires may evolve and joint into single event, or the number of fire events for a given area. Although global fire products based on the use of Earth Observation satellites exist, most remote sensing products only partially cover the requirements for these analyses.

Global fire monitoring systems are crucial to study fire behaviour, fire regimes and their impact at the global scale. Most of the damage was due to the annual slash-and-burn fires that spread elsewhere, the ministry found. More than 320,000 hectares were destroyed by wildfire between 20, according to the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture. Villagers and firefighters worked together to contain the fires, preventing damage to homes, farms and cattle, he said. In Oudomxay province’s Xay district, between 45% and 50% of forest has recently been destroyed by wildfires, a local official said. “At the farms, the fires are burning things left over after the harvest, like corn cobs and dry trash, including decayed fences and old water hoses,” the official told RFA last week. Other fires have started in forests and then spread to nearby farms, according to an official in Luang Prabang province’s Vieng Kham district. “Some places, there’s no water and a fire truck can’t do anything.” “If the place of wildfire is steep and hilly and a firetruck can’t reach it, villagers use the tree branches,” he said. Laos’ government doesn’t use airplanes or drones to monitor or extinguish fires like they do in other countries, he said. Most firefighters in Laos have out-of-date equipment and are underfunded, a rescue official in Oudomxay province told Radio Free Asia.

Forest Fire free