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2.1.4 Fire databases

The average extent of vegetation affected by wildfires in sub-Saharan Africa, including inter-annual variability of area burned, is not exactly known. However, an increasing number of national and regional studies using remote sensing data have been completed. The country reports of the Central African Republic, Namibia and Sénégal, as well as the introduction to the report on southern Africa (van Wilgen and Scholes 1997, Kendall et al. 1997) and other studies reveal the magnitude of fire activity as assessed by satellite remote sensing. The following case studies using remote sensing or modelling illustrate the magnitude of wildfires that affect forest and non-forest ecosystems:

• Benin: 7.5 million ha of forests exposed to fire annually (see country report)

• Botswana, 1996 and 1998: 6.2 and 3 million ha of vegetated land burned (source: Botswana Department of Meteorological Services)

• Namibia, 1997: 3 million ha of vegetated land burned (Trigg 2000)

• Sénégal, 1995-1996: >0.5 million ha of vegetated land burned (see country report)

• Sudan: 60 million ha of vegetated land exposed to fire annually (see country report)

• Sub-equatorial Africa: ca. 170 million ha of vegetated land burned (Scholes et al. 1996)

However, these remote sensing products, obtained from country or regional studies, do not provide any information on the impact of wildfires in the degradation of forests, other wooded lands and other lands.

Several regional and global satellite remote sensing studies have generated useful products that show the distribution of pan-African fire activities in time and space. The evaluation of DMSP data (NOAA-NESDIS 2000), the ESRIN ATSR Fire Atlas (ESRIN 2000a) and the ESRIN AVHRR Fire Atlas (ESRIN 2000b) as well as the ongoing work of the regional African nodes of the World Fire Web are the most prominent examples (WFW 2000). Regional African and global burned area assessments using NOAA AVHRR and ATSR data are currently in preparation.

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) products depict emissions from forest and other vegetation fires. Earth Probe TOMS, launched on 2 July 1996, shows aerosols emitted from vegetation fires, desert dust storms and other sources. Figure 2-1 shows a smoke plume generated by fires in northern Angola, Zaire and the Republic of Congo on 4 August 2000.

Source: NASA.

Figure 2-1 Smoke from vegetation fires burning in northern Angola, Zaire and the Republic of Congo on 4 August 2000, depicted by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS).


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