Percentage of Burned Areas - Cropland/Natural Vegetation (2006 - 2016)

Burned areas are characterized by deposits of charcoal and ash, removal of vegetation, and alteration of the vegetation structure (Pereira et al. 1997, Roy et al. 1999). The MODIS algorithm used to map burned areas takes advantage of these spectral, temporal, and structural changes (Roy et al. 2005a). It detects the approximate date of burning at 500 m by locating the occurrence of rapid changes in daily surface reflectance time series data. The algorithm maps the spatial extent of recent fires and not of fires that occurred in previous seasons or years.