The Sense4Fire project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to increase the scientific understanding of dynamics and emissions of landscape fires and their role in the carbon cycle by integrating observations from the Sentinels into new Earth observation products.
Sense4Fire develops novel Earth observation approaches and datasets about fire dynamics and emissions. Fire dynamics encompass a broad range of processes, including pre-fire conditions of the land surface (i.e. fuel loads and fuel moisture), fire behaviour (fire ignitions, spread, speed, size, burnt area, fire type, and radiative power), combustion and production of fire emissions (combustion completeness, dry matter burnt, combustion efficiency, and composition of emissions) and the effect of fire emissions on atmospheric composition.
The Sense4Fire project is part of ESA’s Carbon Science Cluster. The project has been originally funded from August 2021 to July 2023 and has been prolonged twice until December 2026.
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Datasets
High resolution fuel and fire emissions datasets are available for the Amazon/Cerrado, southern Africa, southern Europe and Siberia. Link to Data
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Approaches
Sense4Fire provides two fire emission approaches (GFA-S4F and TUD-S4F) and a set of approaches based on Sentinel-5p (KNMI-S5p) to benchmark fire emissions. Link to Approaches
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Publications
Work from Sense4Fire is published in a series of technical dcouments and in a series of high-level scientific publications. Link to Publications
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Outreach
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Vegetation fire dynamics from space
A groundbreaking study, partially funded by ESA, reveals that fire emissions in the Amazon and Cerrado are largely driven by the smouldering combustion of woody debris. This crucial discovery highlights the significant influence of fuel characteristics on fire emissions, with wide-ranging implications for global carbon cycles, air quality and biodiversity.
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Amazon wildfire emissions up to three times higher than estimated
Wildfires that swept across the Amazon in 2024 were the most devastating in more than two decades. New research funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) suggests emissions may have been up to three times higher than earlier estimates.
