# Fire Activity and Fuel Consumption Dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa
## 5 Conclusions  
This study has used a variety of remotely sensed datasets to investigate the spatial and temporal variations in fire activity and fuel consumption across sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on years between 2004 and 2016. For the first time, an extensive comparison between FRE-derived fuel consumption and temporally integrated MODIS productivity data (PSN) on a fire cluster basis has been conducted, and it has indicated strong correlations between the two in the southern hemisphere. This is encouraging given the very different methods used to characterise fuel load and fuel consumption. The agreement in the southern hemisphere (\(r>=0.9\)) is stronger than that found in the northern hemisphere (r \(>\) 0.66) and is consistent on an annual basis, but it is clear that the FRE-derived fuel consumptions are underestimated. Annual SEVIRI FRE-derived fuel consumption estimates are consistently far lower than those from GFED when the standard 0.37 MJ kg\({}^{-1}\) conversion factor is used. However, the annual dynamics of FRE and GFED burned area do show similar trends over time. The data used in this study indicates that FRE-derived annual fuel consumption has decreased in both northern (mean of \(-4.3\) Tg/year) and southern (mean of \(-0.57\) Tg/year) hemisphere Africa across the 2004-2016 period. However, analysis of the monthly dynamics reveals that large shifts in fuel consumption of 20-50% can occur even during the peak biomass burning season, and that temporal trends are stronger outside the fire season albeit much lower in magnitude. The latter may have implications for emissions mitigation schemes that employ early season burning to reduce fire impacts on the environment. Further research is needed to reconcile differences found in the relationship between FRE and fuel consumption. A key difficulty in fire emissions estimation concerns validation and, to date, there have been limited opportunities to do so. The RxCADRE field campaign [85] validated ground, airborne and spaceborne FRP retrievals but, despite incorporating 10 prescribed fires, concluded that a greater number of experiments were required to adequately assess FRP retrievals made from different platforms. Validation of fuel consumption is equally challenging due to the logistics involved in measuring fuel load and fuel consumption. Surface measurements of fuel consumption per unit area (kg DM m\({}^{-2}\)) are useful but may not fully capture the heterogeneity of fuel distribution and consumption, whilst estimating this metric using satellite data requires integrating different data products which each introduce their own uncertainties. [PERSON] et al., [86] highlights the benefits that the improved temporal and spatial resolution of the next generation of geostationary sensors (e.g., the Advanced Himawari Imager, AHI) will bring with regards to fire characterisation. The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) series of satellites, proposed for launch in 2021, will provide enhanced capabilities over Africa, and thereby further improve FRE-derived fuel combustion estimates. [PERSON] designed and performed the experiments. [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] processed the data. The manuscript was written and prepared by [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON]. This research was funded by NERC via grants NE/M017958/1 and NE/M017729/1 and NERC's National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO). The MODIS primary productivity (MOD17), burned area (MCD64) and land cover (MCD12) data were obtained through the NASA Reverb service ([[http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/](http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/)]([http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/](http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/))). The LSA-SAF FRP-PIXEL data were provided by the EUMETSAT Land Surface Analysis Satellite Application Facility (LSA SAF; [[http://landsaf.ipma.pt/](http://landsaf.ipma.pt/)]([http://landsaf.ipma.pt/](http://landsaf.ipma.pt/))).