Data Characteristics
Area: ~10 degrees x 10 degrees
Dimensions: 1200 x 1200 rows/columns
File Size: ~0.5 MB
Resolution: 1 kilometer
Projection: Sinusoidal
Fire Mask Data Type: 8-bit unsigned integer
Data Format: HDF-EOS
Science Data Sets (SDS HDF Layers): 4 + Vdata table
Dimensions: 3 ( row x column x day)
The
above images display indications of prescribed burning occurring in
the southern U.S. on March 8. 2007 found in the MOD14A1 product.
Using the product’s
Fire_Mask
a color code was applied to highlight fires in yellow, water bodies
in blue, and leaving land area in black. Each yellow pixel is 1km2.
The image on the left
is the entire tile h10v05, including most noticeably the Mississippi
River, and portions of the surrounding southern States. On the right
is a zoomed view of the lower right corner of the tile showing proliferate
fire activity stretching from Florida northwards through Georgia and
South Carolina.
The progression of fires from morning to afternoon can be observed by comparing these images to the later Aqua acquisition from the same day (MYD14A1).
V005 Change Points of Interest:
Internal HDF compression reduces products to ~5% of their uncompressed size.
SDS "most confident detected fire" renamed as "FireMask".
Reduced 32-bit QA to simpler 8-bit layer.
Added global HDF attributes to simplify use of tile-level QA.
As always, MOD14A1 products contain 8 days of data per file, but in V005 metadata is written for each day, rather than as totals for the entire 8-day period.
Product Description
MODIS Thermal Anomalies/Fire
products are primarily derived from MODIS
4- and 11-micrometer
radiances. The fire detection strategy is based on absolute detection
of a fire (when the fire strength is sufficient to detect), and on detection
relative to its background (to account for variability of the surface
temperature and reflection by sunlight). Numerous tests are employed
to reject typical false alarm sources like sun glint or an unmasked
coastline.
MOD14A1 is produced
every 8 days at 1-kilometer resolution as a gridded level-3 product
in the Sinusoidal projection. It is unique in that it has three dimensions:
fire-mask (1D) and a maximum fire-radiative-power (2D) are provided
for each day (3D) in the 8-day period. For example, the fire-mask contains
eight, band (day) sequential, 1200 x 1200 images of fire data representing
consecutive days of data collection.
The Terra MODIS instrument
acquires data twice daily (10:30 AM and PM), as does the Aqua MODIS
(1:30 PM and AM). These four daily MODIS fire observations serve to
advance global monitoring of the fire process and its effects on ecosystems,
the atmosphere, and climate.
Version-5 MODIS/Terra Thermal Anomalies/Fire products are Validated
Stage 1, meaning that accuracy
has been estimated using a small number of independent measurements
obtained from selected locations and time periods and ground-truth/field
program efforts. Although there may be later improved versions, these
data are ready for use in scientific publications.
LP DAAC User Services
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS)
47914 252nd Street
Sioux Falls, SD 57198-0001