About the prototype

The Sentinel-3 World Fires Atlas Prototype product has been developed by European Space Agency over the southern countries of the ESA member states, using as input the Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B SLSTR Level 1b data containing two dedicated channels (F1 and F2) for fire and high temperature events.

The ESA Sentinel-3 World Fires Atlas Prototype aims to provide continuity to ESA ATSR World Fire Atlas (operating from June 1995 to March 2012) taking on board all the improvements of Sentinel-3 SLSTR instrument.

The processing chain is based on ESA SNAP and GDAL routines hosted in the ONDA Copernicus DIAS.

Two different algorithms, derived from a simplification of the work of Wooster et al. 2012, for day and night time have been developed, implemented and adapted to S3 SLSTR L1b NRT processing constraints.

Day-Time algorithm.

For all valid pixels over land is applied an algorithm based on:

  • Brightness Temperature of Sentinel-3 Fire channels acquired at nadir (F1_BT_in and F2_BT_in)
  • Skin Temperature – auxiliary data provided by ECMWF [it is defined as the temperature of the surface at radiative equilibrium. It forms the interface between soil, snow or ice and the atmosphere]
  • Contextual filters*, mean & standard deviation on 5×5 window, are applied in order to prevent false alarms

Night-Time algorithm.

For all valid pixels over land is applied an algorithm based on:

  • Brightness Temperature of Sentinel-3 Fire channels acquired at nadir (F1_BT_in and F2_BT_in)
  • Contextual filters* (mean & standard deviation on 5×5 window) are applied in order to prevent false alarms

*Contextual filters derived from a simplification of the work of Wooster et al. 2012

Two dedicated viewer are freely available to the users:
Near Real Time viewer To visualise fire events occurred in the last 24, 48 or 72 hours on the map and their relative information available at https://s3worldfireatlas.esa.int/viewer. In addition a further option (available from May 2019) will allow the user to define an area of interest and receive a notification if new fires events are detected inside it.

Archive viewer To visualise, defining a time range, fire events occurred over the southern countries of the ESA member states from 1st of January 2019 onwards is available at https://s3worldfireatlas.esa.int/archive. These results are based on Sentinel-3 SLSTR Level 1b Non Time Critical products.

ESA intends to process systematically all acquired Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B SLSTR Level 1b data from April 2019 onward over the southern countries of the ESA member states (Latitude from 34°N to 60°N; Longitude from 12°W to 31°E) and operate the prototype service up to end of summer.

In order to improve the ESA Sentinel-3 World Fires Atlas Prototype product and service, feedback from users are welcome by email at due@esa.int

Please be aware that the Sentinel-3 World Fire Atlas product is a prototype and you recognize that this is not a final product and you are aware of the consequences of using a prototype that has not been validated.