MGBAS2 reference data:reference fire perimeters obtained from Sentinel-2 imagery over Madagascar for the years 2019 and 2021

The MGBAS2 reference data was derived from Sentinel-2 images over a set of 6 tiles (sampling units)sampled following a design customized for the Sentinel tiling grid system and to represent low and high burned area occurrence strata in Madagascar. Over each tile Sentinel-2 time series were defined based on a set of conditions for minimizing cloud cover and to guarantee series length and a minimum time lag between image pairs. Sentinel-2 image pairs were classified with a Random Forest (RF) algorithm to provide burned perimeters of depicting areas that burned between the two dates that were combined in a synthetic burned area reference dataset. This dataset represent for each unit burned and unburned polygons and masked areas.
A detailed description of the dataset can be found in Fernández-García et al.(2023) ("Madagascar’s burned area from Sentinel-2 imagery (2016–2022): four times higher than from lower resolution sensors", in preparation).