Queensland Fire Scar Maps from Landsat Imagery, 1987-2016

More than 80% of fire scars captured in Landsat imagery have been correctly mapped, with less than a 30% false fire rate. These statewide maps of burnt areas are derived from all available Landsat imagery across Queensland, automatically detected and mapped using dense time series from 1987 to 2016. The datasets are available as annual and monthly products from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network's Data Discovery.

Use Cases

• Monitor annual fire activity trends based on statewide maps from 1987 to 2016
• Analyze seasonal fire patterns based on monthly fire scar products
• Validate and improve fire detection algorithms based on manually edited 2013-2016 data
• Assess wildfire impact on ecosystems based on geospatial fire scar maps

Strengths

• On average, more than 80% of fire scars captured in Landsat imagery have been correctly mapped
• Data for 2013-2016 has been refined and manually edited from automated outputs
• The 2016 annual composite incorporated Sentinel 2A imagery and excluded Landsat-7 SLC-Off imagery

Limitations

• The reduction in missed fires for the 2016 composite and improved accuracy for 2013-2016 have not been quantified
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to data_gov_au, as the primary time series ends in 2016

Provenance

Source

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network's Data Discovery

Collection Method

Automatically detected and mapped using dense time series of Landsat imagery, with manual editing for 2013-2016

Time Range

1987 to 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-18 01:19:40.501905; freshness should be verified

Geography

Queensland, Australia