The GFP can give improved estimates of these parameters from direct observations. Summary of fire pixels per cell from 30 July to 8 August 1992. It is not advised to use the GFP to estimate area burned as the product indicates only the presence or absence of fire in a pixel. Nor can it be used to count the absolute number of fire events in a given location as it is only a temporal sample. Extensive research for different vegetation types would need to be carried out if such a scheme were to be adopted.
Current research is focused on retrieving burned area directly from low resolution satellite data.
The relative levels of fire occurrence in different vegetation types and regions can be estimated when the data is used with appropriate land cover maps. Table 1 shows the percentage of the global land surface covered by each of these vegetation types, the proportion of each type which was affected by fire and the percentage of the earth's land surface this represents. As each fire pixel detected covers a 1 km 2 surface area it can represent one or more fires of unknown dimensions within that area. The type of vegetation burned is also of interest in atmospheric chemistry studies and in research into carbon cycling. The timing of fire is a very important parameter in relation to the study of fire impact on ecosystems.