The Portuguese Large Wildfire Spread Database (PT-FireSprd)

The Portuguese Large Wildfire Spread Database (PT-FireSprd) includes the reconstruction of the spread of 80 large wildfires that occurred in Portugal between 2015 and 2021. It includes a detailed set of fire behaviour descriptors, such as rate-of-spread (ROS), fire spread direction, fire growth rate (FGR), fire radiative energy (FRE) and FRE flux.

The wildfires were reconstructed by converging evidence from complementary data sources, such as satellite imagery/products, airborne and ground data collected by fire personnel, official fire data and information in external reports. We then implemented a digraph-based algorithm to estimate the fire behaviour descriptors and combined it with MSG-SEVIRI fire radiative power estimates. A total of 1197 observations of ROS and FGR were estimated along with 609 FRE estimates.

PT-WFireSprd database is organized in 3 levels: 

L1: Wildfire Progression, representing the spatial and temporal evolution of the wildfire spread (i.e. where and when).

L2: Wildfire Behavior, including quantitative behavior descriptors of  how a wildfire burned, such as the rate-of-spread (ROS), fire growth rate (FGR), fire radiative energy (FRE), and FRE flux;

L3: Simplified Wildfire Behavior, averaging fire behavior over longer periods  that represent relatively homogenous fire runs.

The data from the different levels is composed by a large set of maps that can be useful for several applications and target users.

The PT-FireSprd is the first open access fire progression and behaviour database in  Mediterranean Europe, dramatically expanding the extant information. Updating the PT-FireSprd database will require a continuous joint effort by researchers and fire personnel.