The Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) assimilates fire radiative power (FRP) observations from satellite-based sensors to produce daily estimates of biomass burning emissions. It has been extended to include information about injection heights derived from fire observations and meteorological information from the operational weather forecasts of ECMWF.
FRP observations currently assimilated in GFAS are the NASA Terra MODIS and Aqua MODIS active fire products (http://modis-fire.umd.edu/).
GFAS data includes: Fire Radiative Power (FRP), dry matter burnt and biomass burning emissions.
Data are available globally on a regular lat-lon grid with horizontal resolution of 0.1 degrees from 2003 to present. The features of the current version of GFAS (GFAS v1.2) are:
The gridded satellite data (stream=gfas, type=gsd) are also available hourly (e.g. gridded Aqua FRP from 1 to 2 UTC).
GFAS fire data is based on satellite observations of active fires but the system try to minimise the detection of other heat sources, such as volcanoes and gas flaring, so the system only include vegetation fires. Iceland is a special case and any 'fire' observations are filtered out to mitigate against including volcanic activity. Is it only for Iceland or other places too? If yes, we can list them? Sometimes, MODIS observations can miss any detections during special events, such as volcanic activity, possibly due to cloud cover. |
*since 1 July 2018 |
Gridded satellite variables are raw satellite data averaged and gridded to hourly 0.1 degree grid fields.
Analysis surface variables are output from the GFAS data assimilation.
| Parameter | Instrument | Satellite | Period | Data Provider/version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FRP | MODIS | Terra | 2000-present | NASA LANCE-MODIS, collection 6 |
| FRP | MODIS | Aqua | 2003-present | NASA LANCE-MODIS, collection 6 |
Before downloading data, users must accept the Copernicus CAMS data licence
Access to the archive is either:
The gridded satellite data (stream=gfas, type=gsd) may be browsed through the GFAS catalogue and then retrieved via Web-API.
Note that for the convenience of users who cannot use the ECMWF data server (either via the interactive web interface or through the ECMWF WebAPI), the latest seven days of GFAS data are also available through the FTP Dissemination server. On the FTP server, the new GFAS data becomes available with several hours delay compared to the ECMWF data server. If you wish to have an FTP account setup, please contact Copernicus User Support at ECMWF. |
GFAS File format is GRIB. See What are GRIB files and how can I read them for more information.
The latest daily Fire Radiative Power (FRP) analysis from GFAS is available here. The map represents the thermal radiation measured from space-borne sensors and detected as coming from actively burning vegetation and other open fires. It is expressed as the daily average of the fire radiative power (FRP) observations made in 125 km grid cells and expressed in the units of [mW/m2]. The rate of release of thermal radiation by a fire is believed to be related to the rate at which fuel is being consumed and smoke produced. Therefore, these daily averaged FRP areal intensity data are used in the global estimation of open vegetation fire trace gas and particulate emissions.
Archived Fire Radiative Power maps (global and by selected areas) are available here for the past 5 days.
Please acknowledge the use of the CAMS GFAS as stated in the Copernicus CAMS License agreement:
"Where the Licensee communicates to the public or distributes or publishes CAMS Information, the Licensee shall inform the recipients of the source of that information by using the following or any similar notice:
Where the Licensee makes or contributes to a publication or distribution containing adapted or modified CAMS Information, the Licensee shall provide the following or any similar notice:
Any such publication or distribution shall state that "neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains."
Users can find Q&A - wildfires here.
Francesca Di Giuseppe, Samuel Rémy, Florian Pappenberger, and Fredrik Wetterhall, 2018: Combining fire radiative power observations with the fire weather index improves the estimation of fire emissions, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 18, 5359–5370, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2017-790
This document has been produced in the context of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).The activities leading to these results have been contracted by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, operator of CAMS on behalf of the European Union (Delegation Agreement signed on 11/11/2014). All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose.The users thereof use the information at their sole risk and liability. For the avoidance of all doubt, the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts have no liability in respect of this document, which is merely representing the author's view. |