DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15755007
title: State of Wildfires 2024-25: Regional Summaries of Asset Exposure and Population Exposure to Burned Area by Continent, Biome, Country, and Administrative Region

description: This dataset supports the State of Wildfires 2024-25 report under review at Earth System Science Data (Kelley et al., under review; !!!!ADD DOI LINK TO ARTICLE!!!!!). 

It is an update of the State of Wildfires 2023-24 report (Jones et al. 2024). The dataset provides annual data and final-year anomalies in exposed population and exposed physical assets. 

Annual data relate to the global fire season defined as March-February (e.g., March 2023-February 2024), aligning with an annuall lull in the global fire calendar (see Jones et al., 2024). The complete methodology is described by Kelley et al. (under review; !!!ADD DOI LINK TO ARTICLE!!!)

 

Citation 

Work utilising our regional summaries should cite both Kelley et al. (2025; !!!ADD DOI LINK TO ARTICLE!!!) AND the primary reference for the variable(s) of interest as follows: 





Giglio et al. (2018) for MODIS MCD64A1 BA. 




Eberenz et al. (2020) for the exposure layers (reference year: 2018).




Aznar-Siguan and Bresch (2019) and Aznar-Siguan et al. (2025) for the global risk assessment platform CLIMADA.



Input Data 

Burned Area (BA) 





BA data from NASAʼs MODIS BA product (MCD64A1) are extended from Giglio et al. (2018) and are available at Giglio et al. (2021). Period: 2002-February 2025 Resolution: 500m, daily. 



Exposure data LitPop from CLIMADA





Exposure data for population and physical assets are extended from Eberenz et al. (2020) and are available through the CLIMADA data API. Resolution: 150arc, static (reference years=2018).





Regional Analysis 

We performed "cookie-cutting" (spatial and temporal masking) of the above input data sets to features in each of the following regional layers (e.g. per country in the "Countries" layer). 

The statistics derived from cookie-cutting are listed below. Full details in Kelley et al. (2025). 




Layer
Short Form
Source


Biomes
NA


Olson et al. (2001) 



Ecoregions
NA


Olson et al. (2001) 



Continents
NA


ArcGIS Hub (2024) 



Continental Biomes
NA
See above


Countries
NA


EU Eurostat (2020) 



UC Davis Global Administrative Areas (GADM) Level 1


GADM-L1 



UC Davis (2022) 





Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group I (WGI) Reference Regions 



IPCC AR6 WGI Region 



Iturbide et al. (2020) 





Global C Project Regional C Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP2) Reference Regions 



RECCAP2 Regions 



Ciais et al. (2022) 





Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) Basis Regions 



GFED4.1s Regions 



van der Werf et al. (2006) 





 

Regional Statistics and Anomalies

Population Exposure 





Calculated regional totals for each fire season.




Relative and standardized anomalies from historical data (since 2002).




Ranking amongst all recorded fire seasons.



Asset Exposure 





Calculated regional totals for each fire season.




Relative and standardized anomalies from historical data (since 2002).




Ranking amongst all recorded fire seasons.