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Description

The MCD64A1 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MCD64A1 Version 6.1 data product.

The Terra and Aqua combined MCD64A1 Version 6 Burned Area data product is a monthly, global gridded 500 meter (m) product containing per-pixel burned-area and quality information. The MCD64A1 burned-area mapping approach employs 500 m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Surface Reflectance imagery coupled with 1 kilometer (km) MODIS active fire observations. The algorithm uses a burn sensitive Vegetation Index (VI) to create dynamic thresholds that are applied to the composite data. The VI is derived from MODIS shortwave infrared atmospherically corrected surface reflectance bands 5 and 7 with a measure of temporal texture. The algorithm identifies the date of burn for the 500 m grid cells within each individual MODIS tile. The date is encoded in a single data layer as the ordinal day of the calendar year on which the burn occurred with values assigned to unburned land pixels and additional special values reserved for missing data and water grid cells.

The data layers provided in the MCD64A1 product include Burn Date, Burn Data Uncertainty, Quality Assurance, along with First Day and Last Day of reliable change detection of the year.

Known Issues

  • Known issues are described on the MODIS Land Quality Assessment website and in Section 8 of the User Guide which covers Cropland Burning, the August 2000 and June 2001 Data Outages, and the August 2020 Aqua Outage.

Improvements/Changes from Previous Version

  • The product is now generated using an improved version of the MCD64 burned area mapping algorithm (Giglio et al., 2009), i.e., MCD64A1 will be adopted as the standard MODIS burned area product for Collection 6. The MCD45A1 product will not be generated beyond Collection 5.1.
  • The product is generated using Version 6 surface reflectance and active fire input data.
  • General improvement (reduced omission error) in burned area detection, including significantly better detection of small burns.
  • Modest reduction in burn-date temporal uncertainty.
  • Significant reduction in the occurrence of unclassified grid cells due to algorithm changes and refinements in the upstream Version 6 input data.
  • Product coverage expanded from 219 to 268 MODIS tiles.
  • Expanded per-pixel Quality Assurance (QA) product layer.

Version Description

The MCD64A1 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MCD64A1 Version 6.1 data product (https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD64A1.061).

Product Summary

Platforms
Terra,
Aqua
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent
N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180
Spatial Resolution
500 Meters x 500 Meters
Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2000-11-01 to 2022-12-31
Temporal Resolution
1 Month
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
MODIS Adaptive Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/MODAPS)
Concept ID
C2763297163-LPCLOUD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Fire Ecology,
Biomass Burning,
Wildfires,
Fire Occurrence

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Giglio, L., Justice, C., Boschetti, L., & Roy, D. (2015). MCD64A1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Burned Area Monthly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V006 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD64A1.006 Date Accessed: 2025-10-31

File Naming Convention

MCD64A1.A2002244.h11v12.006.2017013095459.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MCD64A1) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2002244), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h11v12), the Version of the data collection (006), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2017013095459), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author
How wildfires increase sensitivity of Amazon forests to droughts Le Roux, R.
Wildfire-atmosphere interaction index for extreme-fire behaviour Artes, T.
Quantifying post-fire changes in the aboveground biomass of an Amazonian forest based on field and remote sensing data Pontes-Lopes, A.
Comparing the ability of burned area products to detect crop residue burning in China Zhang, S.
Detecting and quantifying residue burning in smallholder systems—An integrated approach using Sentinel-2 data Deshpande, M. V.
Fuel-specific aggregation of active fire detections for rapid mapping of forest fire perimeters in Mexico Briones-Herrera, C. I.
California wildfire spread derived using VIIRS satellite observations and an object-based tracking system Chen, Y.
A compound event-oriented framework to tropical fire risk assessment in a changing climate Ribeiro, A. F. S.
Intentions behind common and risky fires in south-eastern Tanzania Wood, E.
Fires drive long-term environmental degradation in the Amazon Basin da Silva Junior, C. A.
SHOWING 10 OF 161

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
Burn Date Burn day of year Day int16 -2 -2 to 366 N/A
Burn Date Uncertainty Estimated uncertainty in burn day Day uint8 0 0 to 100 N/A
First Day First day of the year of reliable change detection Day int16 -2 -2 to 366 N/A
Last Day Last day of the year of reliable change detection Day int16 -2 -2 to 366 N/A
QA Quality Assurance Indicators Bit Field uint8 N/A N/A to 255 N/A
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