Vizualizing Fire Patterns 2010-2019
Global fire patterns are visualizaed based on NASA's FIRMS data, focusing on MODIS only and not VIIRS. The MODIS satellite detects active fires. This visualization can inform us which countries and what time of the year fires most frequently occur. Why do some countries have so many fires while others don't? Causes can be related to climate, agricultural practices, volcanoes, and more.
Fires through time
This chart visualizes the number of fires detected by month and year. It appears that more fires occur from June to August.
Display 'read-chart' instructions
Number of Fires by Year
Description
Fires through space
Which countries have the most fires each year over the last ten years? See the rankings below:
Data Source
Yearly data in csv format has been downloaded from NASA's FIRMS (Fire Information For Resource Management System) Website. This particular visualization has focused only on data acquired by MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer).
Methods
The csv data was downloaded and included fields such as date, latitude and longitude. A python script was written to assign each location to a country and count the number of fires by country and by month. The total number of records of fire detection was over 40 million.
Reference
The Amazon is burning at record rates—and deforestation is to blame. - National Geographic
The Amazon, Siberia, Indonesia: A World of Fire - The New York Times
Record Temperatures and Wildfires in Eastern Russia - NASA
2010 Russian wildfires - Wikipedia
Indonesian fires burnt 1.6 million hectares of land this year: researchers - Reuters
Indonesia’s fires are bad, but new measures prevented them from becoming worse - Science
Forest Fire Situation in Kazakhstan - Karim Khaidarov & Arkhipov V.A.
Global Volcanism Program, 2011. Report on Nabro (Eritrea) - Wunderman R.
Attribution
Data visualization (design & coding): Julia Janicki
Research and narratives: Sylvia Janicki & Julia Janicki
Data cleaning & processing: Julia Janicki & Lodovico Oldani
December 2019