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Description

The Terra and Aqua combined MCD64A1 Version 6.1 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

Improvements/Changes from Previous Versions

  • The Version 6.1 Level-1B (L1B) products have been improved by undergoing various calibration changes that include: changes to the response-versus-scan angle (RVS) approach that affects reflectance bands for Aqua and Terra MODIS, corrections to adjust for the optical crosstalk in Terra MODIS infrared (IR) bands, and corrections to the Terra MODIS forward look-up table (LUT) update for the period 2012 - 2017.
  • A polarization correction has been applied to the L1B Reflective Solar Bands (RSB).

Version Description

Collection Version 6.1 Processing and Reprocessing

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 Present
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
C2565786756-LPCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Fire Ecology,
Biomass Burning,
Wildfires,
Fire Occurrence,
Burned Area

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. (2021). MODIS/Terra+Aqua Burned Area Monthly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V061 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD64A1.061 Date Accessed: 2025-10-28

File Naming Convention

MCD64A1.A2025152.h06v03.061.2025220161136.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MCD64A1) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2025152), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h06v03), the Version of the data collection (061), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2025220161136), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

USER'S GUIDE

ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD)

PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT

SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT VALIDATION

GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

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Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author
Fires drive long-term environmental degradation in the Amazon Basin da Silva Junior, C. A.
Mapping native and non-native vegetation in the Brazilian Cerrado using freely available satellite products Lewis, K.
Anthropogenic and lightning fire incidence and burned area in Europe Dijkstra, J.
Monthly mapping of forest harvesting using dense time series Sentinel-1 SAR imagery and deep learning Zhao, F.
Changes in the spatial patterns of burned area in Colombia, what happened in the first two decades of the 21st century? Armenteras, D.
The influence of contrasting fire management practice on bush encroachment—Lessons from Bwabwata National Park, Namibia Eastment, C.
Lightning patterns in the Pantanal—Untangling natural and anthropogenic-induced wildfires Menezes, L. S.
Wildfire dynamics along a north-central Siberian latitudinal transect assessed using Landsat imagery Dvornikov, Y.
Detecting fire-caused forest loss in a Moroccan protected area Castro, I.
How much of a pixel needs to burn to be detected by satellites? A spectral modeling experiment based on ecosystem data from Yellowstone National Park, USA Riet, M.
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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