MODIS Active Fire Product User's Guide

The MODIS Collection 4 Active Fire Products User's Guide (version 2.3) provides the most current information regarding the Terra and Aqua MODIS fire products. It is intended to provide the end user with practical information regarding their use and misuse, and to explain some of the more obscure and potentially confusing aspects of the fire products and MODIS products in general.

Click here to download the MODIS Fire User's Guide (2.5 MB).

MODIS Visual Resources

Examples of MODIS images showing hotspot/fire detections:
View as a PowerPoint slideshow (38 MB) or as a PDF file (3 MB)

Monthly Composite Animations of hotspot/fire detections from the Terra satellite:

Featured Image Archive: Archive of featured fire images that have been displayed on the FIRMS home page.

You are welcome to use the above resources for presentation or educational materials. Please acknowledge FIRMS / NASA MODIS Rapid Response System as the source.

Publications

The publications listed below are based on research undertaken using MODIS fire products. The list was compiled to provide users with examples of how the data are being used as well as studies that provide accuracy assessments or validate the use of the MODIS active fire product.

This is not an exhaustive list and if you would like to recommend other publications to be added to this list, please contact us.

Show AllHide All 2009 Davies, D.K., Ilavajhala, S., Wong, M.M., and Justice, C.O. 2009. Fire Information for Resource Management System: Archiving and Distributing MODIS Active Fire Data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 47 (1): 72-79. Langner, A. and Siegert, F. 2009. Spatiotemporal fire occurrence in Borneo over a period of 10 years. Global Change Biology 15: 48-62. 2008 Calle, A., Gonzalez-Alonso, F., Merino de Miguel, S. 2008. Validation of active forest fires detected by MSG-SEVIRI by means of MODIS hot spots and AWiFS images. International Journal of Remote Sensing 29 (12): 3407-3415. Davies, D.K., Vosloo, H.F., Vannan, S.S. and Frost, P.E., 2008. Near real-time fire alert system in South Africa: from desktop to mobile service. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on designing interactive systems. pp. 315-322 (Cape Town, South Africa ACM). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1394445.1394479. Hanninen, O.O, Salonen, R.O., Koistinen, K., Lanki, T., Barregard, L., Jantunen, M. 2008. Population exposure to fine particles and estimated excess mortality in Finland from an East European wildfire episode. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology 1-9. Jaenicke, J., Rieley, J.O., Mott, C., Kimman, P. and Siegert, F. 2008. Determination of the amount of carbon stored in Indonesian peatlands. Geoderma 147: 151-158. Robbins, A.M.J., Eckelmann, C.-M., Quinones, M. 2008. Forest Fires in the Insular Carribean Ambio 37 (7-8): 528-534. Schroeder, W., Prins, E., Giglio, L., Csiszar, I., Schimdt, C., Morisette, J., Morton, D. 2008. Validation of GOES and MODIS active fire detection products using ASTER and ETM+ data. Remote Sensing of Environment 112: 2711–2726. How Unilever Palm Oil Suppliers are Burning up Borneo. 2008. Published by GreenPeace. Deforestation, Forest Degradation, Biodiversity Loss and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Riau, Sumatra, Indonesia. 2008. Published by WWF. 2007 Dlamini, W. 2007. Review of Swaziland fire disaster using GIS and MODIS data. PositionIT Sept/Oct 2007: 61-65. He, Liming, et al. 2007. Evaluation of the Agricultural Residues Burning Reduction in China using MODIS Fire Product. Environmental Monitoring in China 23 (1): 42-50. Langner, A., Miettinen, J., Siegert, F. 2007. Land cover change 2002–2005 in Borneo and the role of fire derived from MODIS imagery. Global Change Biology 13: 2329–2340. Miettinen, J., Langner, A., Siegert, F. 2007 . Burnt area estimation for the year 2005 in Borneo using multi-resolution satellite imagery. International Journal of Wildland Fire 16: 45–53. Nangoma, D., Bayliss, J. 2007. The First use of the MODIS RAPID RESPONSE (MRR) Fire Alert System on Mount Mulanje, Malawi. Nyala, A Journal of Malawi Natural History and Conservation 24:3-15. Stohl, A., Berg, T.,Burkhart, j.f., Fjaeraa, A.M., Forster, C., Herber, A., Hov, O., Lunder, C., McMillan, W.W., Oltmans, S., Shiobara, M., Simpson, D., Solberg, S., Stebel, K., Strom, J., Torseth, K.,Treffeisen, R.,Virkkunen, K., Yttri, K.E. 2007. Arctic smoke – record high air pollution levels in the European Arctic due to agricultural fires in Eastern Europe in spring 2006. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 7: 511–534. Witham, C., Manning, A. 2007. Impacts of Russian biomass burning on UK air quality. Atmospheric Environment 41: 8075–8090. Wright, S.J., Sanchez-Azofeifa, A., Portillo-Quintero, C., Davies, D. 2007. Poverty and corruption compromise tropical forest reserves. Ecological Applications 17 (5): 1259-1266. 2006 Chand, K.T.R, Badarinath, K.V.S., Prasad, K.V., Murthy, M.S.R., Elvidge, C.D., Tuttle, B.T. 2006. Monitoring forest fires over the Indian region using Defense Meterological Satellite Program- Operational Linescan System nighttime satellite data. Remote Sensing of Environment 103 (2): 165-178. Csiszar, I., Morisette J., and Giglio, L. 2006. Validation of active fire detection from moderate resolution satellite sensors: the MODIS example in Northern Eurasia. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 44 (7): 1757-1764. Fire management- Global Assessment 2006. A thematic study prepared in the framework of the Global Forest Resource Assessment 2005. FAO Forestry Paper 151. Giglio, L., Csiszar, I., and Justice, C. O. 2006a. Global distribution and seasonality of active fires as observed with the Terra and Aqua MODIS sensors. Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, G02016, doi:10.1029/2005JG000142. Giglio, L., van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Collatz, G. J., and Kasibhatla, P. 2006b. Global estimation of burned area using MODIS active fire observations. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 6:957-974. Wiedinmyer, C., Quayle, B., Geron, C., Belote, A., Mckenzie, D., Zhang, X., O'Neill, S.,Wynne, K.K. 2006. Estimating emissions from fires in North America for air quality modeling. Atmospheric Environment 40: 3419–3432. 2005 Morisette J., Csiszar, I., Giglio,L., Justice, C.O. 2005a. Validation of the MODIS active fire product over Southern Africa with ASTER data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 26 (19): 4239–4264. Morisette, J.T., Giglio, L., Csiszar, I., Setzer, A., Schroeder, W., Morton, D., Justice, C.O. 2005b. Validation of MODIS active fire detection products derived from two algorithms. Earth Interactions 9(9):1-25. Wooster, M. J., G. Roberts, G. L. W. Perry, and Y. J. Kaufman. (2005). Retrieval of biomass combustion rates and totals from fire radiative power observations: FRP derivation and calibration relationships between biomass consumption and fire radiative energy release. Journal of Geophysical. Research. 110, D24311. doi:10.1029/2005JD006318. 2004 Eva, H.D., Gregoire, J.-M., Mayaux, P. 2004. Support for management in Africa's Protected Areas. The contribution of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. EUR 21296 EN. Niemi, J.V., Tervahattu, H., Vehkamaki, H., Kulmala, M., Koskentalo, T., Sillanpaa, M., Rantamaki, Minna. 2004. Characterization and source identification of a fine particle episode in Finland. Atmospheric Environment 38: 5003–5012. 2003 Giglio, L., Descloitres, J., Justice, C.O., Kaufman, Y. 2003. An enhanced contextual fire detection algorithm for MODIS. Remote Sensing of Environment 87:273-282. Giglio, L., Justice, C.O. 2003. Effect of wavelength selection on wildfire characterization using the Dozier retrieval. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24: 3515-3520. Kaufman, Y. J., Ichoku, C., Giglio, L., Korontzi, S., Chu, D. A., Hao, W. M., Li, R.-R., and Justice,C. O. 2003. Fires and smoke observed from the Earth Observing System MODIS instrument–products, validation, and operational use. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 24:1765-1781. 2002 Justice, C.O., Giglio, L., Korontzi, S., Owens, J., Morisette, J.T., Roy, D.P., Descloitres, J., Alleaume, S., Petitcolin, F., Kaufman, Y. 2002. The MODIS fire products. Remote Sensing of Environment 83:244-262. Roy, D. P., Borak, J. S., Devadiga, S., Wolfe, R. E., Zheng, M., and Descloitres, J. 2002. The MODIS Land product quality assessment approach. Remote Sensing of Environment, 83:62-76. 1998 Kaufman, Y.J., Justice, C.O., Flynn, L.P., Kendall, J.D., Prins, E.M., Giglio, L., Ward, D.E., Menzel, W.P., and Setzer, A.W. 1998. Potential global fire monitoring from EOS-MODIS. Journal of Geophysical Research, 103 (32): 215-238.