Active Fire Detection from NOAA-11 AVHRR in Eastern Spain

Eastern Spain is the geographic scope for this dataset, which detects six large-scale forest fires from July 4-8, 1994. It was created by the University of Valladolid's Laboratory of Remote Sensing (LATUV) using NOAA-11 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) infrared imagery. The data enables monitoring of active fire evolution through an automated detection procedure.

Use Cases

• Analyze the evolution of active fire fronts using time-series brightness temperature differences from AVHRR channels 3 and 4.
• Validate automated fire detection algorithms against a known set of six large-scale forest fire events.
• Study the spatial and temporal patterns of mid-1990s forest fires in Eastern Spain using georeferenced detection data.
• Assess the performance of the LATUV-developed automatic procedure for processing AVHRR infrared imagery for fire monitoring.

Strengths

• Data covers six distinct, large-scale forest fire events.
• Detection performed over a 5-day period (July 4-8, 1994) for temporal monitoring.
• Utilizes NOAA-11 AVHRR infrared imagery, a standard source for historical remote sensing.

Limitations

• Dataset is temporally limited to a single week in July 1994.
• Spatial coverage is restricted to Eastern Spain, limiting generalizability.
• Specific sample size (e.g., number of fire pixels or images) is unknown.

Provenance

Source

International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme Data and Information System (IGBP-DIS) Regional Satellite Fire Data Compilation.

Collection Method

Automatic detection procedure developed by LATUV, applied to NOAA-11 AVHRR infrared images using the brightness temperature difference between channel 3 (middle infrared) and channel 4 (thermal infrared).

Time Range

July 4, 1994 through July 8, 1994.

Freshness

Data is from 1994; no updates are expected.

Geography

Eastern Spain.