Open data

Datasets

As part of the work of Leverhulme Wildfires, we have developed new datasets which are publicly available, including on anthropogenic fire impacts, palaeofire and global fire use. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss the datasets, including new approaches to analysis.

Theme

Our data

Leverhulme Wildfires datasets

Datasets developed by the Centre, free to access and cite.

Fire Use Published 2024

Global Fire Use Survey

The Global Fire Use Survey aimed to explore human fire use around the world. The survey was completed online by experts (including policymakers, researchers, and fire managers) worldwide. Respondents answered for specific pre-determined regions, which were delineated by country boundaries and ecoregions. The survey had four blocks of questions. The first focused on the stakeholder groups using fire, reasons for burning, and months in which specific fire uses occur. The second block focused on the human fire regime, including fire use by all stakeholders — seasonal variation in burned area, fire ignitions, risk of escaped fire, and trends since 1990. The third focused on fire governance, with questions about the amount of fire suppression by agencies, policy interventions affecting fire use, and their effectiveness. The fourth looked at the respondents’ expertise, including their professional background, research methods, and the years and locations for which their knowledge was deepest.

Citation

Smith, Cathy; Mistry, Jay; Perkins, Oliver (2024). Global Fire Use Survey. Royal Holloway, University of London. Collection. https://doi.org/10.17637/rh.c.7082464.v1

Access dataset 10.17637/rh.c.7082464.v1

Fire Use Published 2021

LIFE: Database of subsistence-oriented and smallholder fire use and mitigation

A global database of contemporary subsistence-oriented and smallholder fire use and mitigation practices in 587 case study locations described in the literature from published and unpublished sources. The database describes 1,708 contemporary subsistence-oriented and smallholder fire use and mitigation practices and contains data on both social and biophysical aspects of fire practices.

Citation

Smith, Cathy; Mistry, Jay (2021). LIFE: Database of subsistence-oriented and smallholder fire use and mitigation. Royal Holloway, University of London. Collection. https://doi.org/10.17637/rh.c.5469993

Related publication

Smith, C., Perkins, O. & Mistry, J. Global decline in subsistence-oriented and smallholder fire use. Nat Sustain 5, 542–551 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00867-y

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Anthropogenic Fire Impacts Published 2022

DAFI: a global database of Anthropogenic Fire

The database of anthropogenic fire impacts (DAFI) is the product of a meta-analysis of more than 500 academic papers, government and NGO reports. It contains quantitative data on burned area, fire return interval and fire size as well as mixed qualitative-quantitative data on fire suppression and policy. Importantly, DAFI places human impacts on fire regimes within their underlying land use context, which supports understanding of how different socioeconomic systems have different attitudes and approaches towards fire use and management. Analysis of DAFI has identified 7 central modes of human fire use that capture 93% of records in the data set. DAFI has subsequently been used to parameterise the Wildfire Human Agency Model — a global behavioural model of human fire use and management.

Citation

Perkins, Oliver; Millington, James (2021). DAFI: a global database of Anthropogenic Fire. figshare. Collection. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5290792.v4

Access dataset 10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5290792.v4

Palaeofire Published 2022

The Reading Palaeofire Database v1b

Wildfires have major impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, the global carbon cycle, atmospheric chemistry and climate. Charcoal records from sedimentary sequences provide a way to reconstruct palaeofire regimes at different temporal and spatial scales and are a key resource to improve our understanding of the drivers of wildfires. The RPD is an updated and expanded database of global charcoal records, accompanied by new Bayesian age models. This version (RPDv1b) updates site, entity, sample and date_info metadata and includes age models for 233 entities. The database contains 1,676 charcoal records from 1,480 sites worldwide; age models have been run for 829 of them.

Citation

Harrison, Sandy, Villegas-Diaz, Roberto, Lincoln, Paul, Kesner, David, Cruz-Silva, Esmeralda, Sweeney, Luke, Shen, Yicheng and Gallagher, Daniel (2022): The Reading Palaeofire Database v1b: an expanded global resource to document changes in fire regimes from sedimentary charcoal records. University of Reading. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.17864/1947.000345

Related publication

Harrison, S. P., Villegas-Diaz, R., Cruz-Silva, E., et al. (2022): The Reading Palaeofire Database: an expanded global resource to document changes in fire regimes from sedimentary charcoal records. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1109–1124. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1109-2022

Access dataset 10.17864/1947.000345

Open Access Datasets

Open access datasets which we use in our research will be listed here as this page develops. Thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Vegetation Index: longterm_VI (Seoul National University)

Jeong, S., Ryu, Y., Gentine, P., Lian, X., Fang, J., Li, X., Dechant, B., Kong, J., Choi, W., Jiang, C., Keenan, T. F., Harrison, S. P., & Prentice, I. C. (2024). Persistent global greening over the last four decades using novel long-term vegetation index data with enhanced temporal consistency. Remote Sensing of Environment, 311, 114282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114282