LBA-ECO LC-02: Forest Flammability from Controlled Burns in Acre, Brazil

Fifty controlled burns in 1998 measured fire spread rates in mature Amazonian forests on the Catuaba Experimental Farm. The dataset includes environmental variables like canopy openness, leaf area index, litter humidity, and days without rainfall. These results support a thesis on primary forest susceptibility to fire in southeastern Amazonia.

Use Cases

• Modeling fire spread rates based on environmental conditions like litter humidity and canopy openness.
• Analyzing the relationship between drought duration (days without rainfall) and forest flammability.
• Calibrating satellite-based fire detection algorithms with ground-truthed burn measurements.
• Studying the susceptibility of different primary forest types to controlled ignition.

Strengths

• Contains results from 50 distinct controlled fire experiments, providing a substantial sample size.
• Includes a companion thesis document (in Portuguese) that provides detailed methodological and analytical context.
• Measures a specific and calculated primary variable: the rate of fire spread.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: specific column names and the exact data file structure are unknown.
• Conflicting metadata exists: the 'last updated' date differs significantly between platforms (1999 vs. 2026), suggesting possible archival errors.
• Temporal coverage is limited to a single year (1998), which may not capture seasonal or interannual variability.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); data originates from the LBA-ECO project and a thesis by Elsa Renee Huamán Mendoza.

Collection Method

Field experiments involving controlled burns, with fire spread rate calculated from duration and burned area extent.

Time Range

1998

Freshness

2026-04-10 01:47:25.092447

Geography

Catuaba Experimental Farm, Federal University of Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil (southeastern Amazonia).