One year of fire observations from space: lessons learned about fire behavior and vegetation

Fire is a key driver in African savannas and controls the vegetation distribution; therefore park managers use fire as a tool to promote the habitat diversity. This study analyses the spatio-temporal dynamics of burning in nearly 750 protected areas (PAs) using the MODIS active fire product; this includes information on the Fire Radiative Power (FRP) which informs on the fire intensity. Considering the seasonality, our continental scale results show that mid or late season fires prevail. As regards the fire intensity, the mean FRP ranges from 10 MW, at the beginning of the dry season, to nearly 400 MW towards the end. Most PAs show an annual FRP of 40-50 MW on average, depending on their dominant vegetation type. The highest FRP values are observed in the shrubland and grassland landcovers, with ranges between 10-470 MW and 10-500 MW respectively. These results can contribute to improve fire management in conservation areas.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen