2008 Northern Australia Fire Observations

The fires that these data show include - savanna fires, wildfires, managed fires, agricultural fires, and thermal anomalies associated with power plants or gas flares. Fires occur around the world at different times of the year.

MODIS is entering its 10th year of data collection and we are using the data to study the global distribution of fires and document changed in fire regimes due to climate or land use change.

These fire data are used by Australian fire managers and scientists. Dr Chris Justice and the MODIS team participated in the NAILSMA experiment. NAILSMA was commissioned by the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce to convene a forum to bring together key Indigenous water experts from across the north of Australia to discuss their water interests and issues. This part of Northern Australia is an important area in terms of biodiversity and fire is an integral ecosystem process. We are interested in applying these data and other data from the MODIS instrument to better understand the occurence of fire and its characteristics in the Northern Territories with respect to emissions of trace gases into the atmosphere an the imacts of fire on the ecosystem.