Active Fire Product Validation

Introduction

The Stage 1 validation of the MODIS Fire and Thermal Anomalies products has been completed. Stage 2 validation is underway through a variety of activities.

The major MODIS active fire validation activities are:

• Validation by US Forest Service in situ fire observations
• Validation by coincident high resolution ASTER data
• Validation by near-coincident data from the experimental fire satellite "BIRD"
• Validation by in situ and high resolution imagery within NASA-funded research projects
• Regional validation sites and networks coordinated by CEOS and GOFC/GOLD

For more information about validation activities for the Fire and Thermal Anomalies products, as well as all MODIS Land products, visit the MODIS Validation Web Site.

Validation by US Forest Service in situ Fire Observations

The EOS validation program has funded Drs. W. M. Hao and D. Ward (US Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory) to undertake independent validation of the MODIS Fire product. They have found good correspondence between MODIS fire locations and fire perimeters measured by the Forest Service. An example is shown below:

Comparison of MODIS active fire locations and Forest Service fire perimeters.

Further details and examples can be found in a slide show (.pdf) provided by Drs. Hao and Ward.

Validation with Coincident ASTER Observations

High resolution data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) have been used to validate the MODIS active fire product over the SAFARI region on Southern Africa. The example below shows an ASTER image of a large fire complex in North-Eastern Namibia.

Red (2.4 µm; channel 9) - green (1.6 µm;, channel 4) - blue (0.5 µm; channel 1) false color ASTER image of a large fire complex from Aug 17 2001 9:08 UTC, centered at 18.8S 19.9 E. The gridded overlay denotes the nominal footprints of the MODIS pixels. The white cells are pixels flagged as fire by the MODIS version 3 algorithm.

Jeff Morisette (NASA/GSFC) developed procedures to determine detection probabilities as a function of sub-pixel heterogeneity. Details of this work with data over Southern Africa are discussed in a poster (PDF) as well as in a scientific paper currently in press.

Validation by Near-Coincident Data from the Experimental Fire Satellite "BIRD"

Comparison with near-coincident observations by the BIRD (Bi-Spectral Infrared Detection) satellite is under way in collaboration between DLR, Germany, and the University of Maryland. BIRD is a dedicated experimental platform for hot spot detection with high saturation temperatures to allow the measurement of energy release.

Active fires in Central Siberia on July 24, 2002, as detected by BIRD and MODIS. BIRD data are courtesy of Dieter Oertel, DLR, Germany.

Validation by in situ and High Resolution Imagery within NASA-Funded Research Projects

NASA is currently supporting an LBA/Phase II project led by Jeff Morisette (NASA/GSFC), Wilfrid Schroeder and Joao Pereira (IBAMA, Brazil) with a strong MODIS active fire validation component. Ivan Csiszar (University of Maryland) and Dmitry Ershov (International Forest Institute, Moscow) lead a New Investigator Program in Earth Sciences project on MODIS active fire and burned area validation and intercomparison with NOAA/AVHRR products. Click here for a poster (.pdf) showing preliminary results of ASTER-MODIS comparison in Siberia.

Regional Validation Sites and Networks Coordinated by CEOS and GOFC/GOLD

MODIS active fire validation activities are carried out in partnership with the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) Land Product Validation (LPV) and the Fire Mapping and Monitoring Implementation Team of the Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics program. These organizations provide a framework for the coordination and standardization of validation procedures and protocols and the exchange of validation data between research group and between fire data producers and users. Partnerships with researchers have been established through the GOFC/GOLD regional networks. The implementation and validation of MODIS active fire data is underway in various regions such as Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, USA, South-East Asia and Southern Africa. Currently we are in the process of establishing fire validation sites based on recommendations set forth in a White Paper by Kjeld Rasmussen, Jeremy-Russell Smith, and Jeff Morisette.

Send comments to MODIS FIRE User Support at University of Maryland Authorized by Christopher Justice, Fire and Thermal Anomalies Principal Investigator