Spatio-Temporal Characterization of Fire Using MODIS Data (2000–2020) in Colombia

Abstract

Fire is a process of disturbance of natural ecosystems that can be used for land management and soil preparation for agricultural purposes, but can also drastically affect biodiversity and the distribution and abundance of species by changing land use and altering the microclimate. The analysis of data on thermal anomalies has become a valuable tool for the study of places with low monitoring of the occurrence of fires. In this study, information from the MODIS sensor was used to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of fires in the five natural regions of Colombia (Caribbean, Andean, Pacific, Orinoquia, and Amazon) in the period of 2000–2020. Nevertheless, MODIS fire hotspots present some difficulties in estimating the magnitude of fire activity, due the relations between active fires and burned areas, which are not constant in space and time. The method used in this work consisted to performance an inter-annual and intra-annual analysis of thermal anomalies data and identifying the incidence of temperature in the occurrence of fires. The fire density (defined as the number of fires per unit area) and the fire trends over the study period were also analyzed. Inter-annual fire peaks were recorded in 2004 (8.21%) and 2007 (8.04%), and three main fire hotspots were identified in the Orinoquia, Andean, and Caribbean regions. Moreover, 87% of fire peaks were observed in the dry season (December–March). On the other hand, the highest incidence of thermal anomalies occurred in the Orinoquia region (83409 ± 185 fires), and the highest incidence of fires per unit area was recorded in the Andean region (0.162 ± 0.086 fires-km2-year). Fire activities varied strongly according to region and year over the study period. Significant correlations were observed between temperature and fire density in the Andean (Rho = 0.7506), Pacific (Rho = 0.7364), and Caribbean (Rho = 0.5571) regions. Thus, temperature seem to be a driver of fire density in these regions.