ORNL DAAC Data Release - NACP: Circumpolar Fire Polygons with NBR, dNBR, RdNBR Metrics and Ecoregions, 1986-2020
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2026 10:46 am America/New_York
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC) released a new fire polygons across the circumpolar region dataset for the North American Carbon Program (NACP).
The North American Carbon Program (NACP) is a multidisciplinary research program designed to improve understanding of North America's carbon sources, sinks, and stocks. The central objective is to measure and understand the sources and sinks of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in North America and adjacent oceans. The NACP is supported by a number of different federal agencies.
Circumpolar Fire Polygons with NBR, dNBR, RdNBR Metrics and Ecoregions, 1986-2020
This dataset contains polygons of retrievable fire boundaries across the circumpolar region attributed with pre-fire and post-fire normalized burn ratio (NBR), differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR), relative differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR), and terrestrial ecoregions. The dataset is separated into three regions: North America, Europe, and Asia; each saved in an appropriate projection and with the years of data available from that region. Historical fire perimeters were available from 1986 to 2020 for North America. Fires from Europe and Asia were available from 2003 to 2016. Polygon geometries were simplified and processed to represent each fire with a single polygon. Google Earth Engine was used to calculate the mean pre-fire and post-fire NBR both within the polygon and in a buffer around the fire. The buffer values were used to adjust NBR values to account for differences in reflectance between image acquisition dates not related to the fire. The data are provided in GeoPackage format. This dataset is intended to be used to analyze broad-scale fire trends across time, space, and ecoregion.
More information about this dataset and others like it can be found on the North American Carbon Program (NACP) landing page.
Citation: Graham, J. A., French, N. H. F., Cook, C., Billmire, M., & Zhuang, Q. (2026). Circumpolar Fire Polygons with NBR, dNBR, RdNBR Metrics and Ecoregions, 1986-2020 (Version 1). ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2477
The North American Carbon Program (NACP) is a multidisciplinary research program designed to improve understanding of North America's carbon sources, sinks, and stocks. The central objective is to measure and understand the sources and sinks of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Carbon Monoxide (CO) in North America and adjacent oceans. The NACP is supported by a number of different federal agencies.
Circumpolar Fire Polygons with NBR, dNBR, RdNBR Metrics and Ecoregions, 1986-2020
This dataset contains polygons of retrievable fire boundaries across the circumpolar region attributed with pre-fire and post-fire normalized burn ratio (NBR), differenced normalized burn ratio (dNBR), relative differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR), and terrestrial ecoregions. The dataset is separated into three regions: North America, Europe, and Asia; each saved in an appropriate projection and with the years of data available from that region. Historical fire perimeters were available from 1986 to 2020 for North America. Fires from Europe and Asia were available from 2003 to 2016. Polygon geometries were simplified and processed to represent each fire with a single polygon. Google Earth Engine was used to calculate the mean pre-fire and post-fire NBR both within the polygon and in a buffer around the fire. The buffer values were used to adjust NBR values to account for differences in reflectance between image acquisition dates not related to the fire. The data are provided in GeoPackage format. This dataset is intended to be used to analyze broad-scale fire trends across time, space, and ecoregion.
More information about this dataset and others like it can be found on the North American Carbon Program (NACP) landing page.
Citation: Graham, J. A., French, N. H. F., Cook, C., Billmire, M., & Zhuang, Q. (2026). Circumpolar Fire Polygons with NBR, dNBR, RdNBR Metrics and Ecoregions, 1986-2020 (Version 1). ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2477