Canada Forest Wildfires Burned Area Map for 2023 at 30-m Resolution

The 2023 fire season dataset maps 12.74 million hectares of burned area in Canada's forested ecozones, representing 1.8% of the total forest-dominated area. It was developed by Natural Resources Canada using the TIIC algorithm on Sentinel-2 and Landsat time-series data. The data distinguishes between summer (11.57 Mha) and fall (1.16 Mha) fires, with fall detection limited to a 4-km buffer of official perimeters to reduce errors.

Use Cases

• Assessing the spatial extent and severity of the 2023 Canadian wildfire season based on the mapped burned area.
• Comparing summer versus fall fire dynamics based on the two detection periods and classes.
• Validating or supplementing other fire perimeter datasets using the 30-m resolution optical satellite data.
• Studying algorithm performance for burn mapping in challenging fall conditions with phenology and snow cover.

Strengths

• Provides a precise burned area total of 12.74 million hectares for the 2023 season.
• Uses a 30-meter spatial resolution, offering detailed spatial analysis.
• Explicitly separates fire detections into summer (90.9% of area) and fall (9.1%) periods.
• Methodology is documented in a peer-reviewed publication (Pelletier et al., 2024).

Limitations

• Fall fire detection is limited to a 4-km buffer of existing perimeters, which may omit some burns.
• The description notes known limitations for fall mapping due to phenology, snow cover, or low sun angles.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Natural Resources Canada, developed within the National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS).

Collection Method

Mapped from Sentinel-2A/B and Landsat-8/9 time-series data using the Tracking Intra- and Inter-year Change (TIIC) algorithm.

Time Range

2023 fire season, with detections from May 30 to October 25.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-16 16:02:53.891050; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada's forested ecozones.