Exploring the use of satellite Earth observation active wildland fire hotspot data via open access web platforms

Globally, managing wildland fire is increasing in complexity. Satellite Earth Observation (EO) data, specifically active fire ‘hotspot’ data, is often used to inform wildland fire management. This study explores hotspot data usage via web traffic data (‘user counts’) for the FIRMS, GWIS and EFFIS web portals between September 2019 and April 2023. Global active fire data use is characterized by multi-month periods of relatively low, stable user counts, interspersed with periodic spikes (4.1x median monthly activity) of activity broadly aligned with the North American / European fire season (late summer-fall). Users from the Americas (45%) and Europe (36%) dominate web traffic. We also examined correlative relationships between web page user counts and environmental and social variables at multiple spatial scales. Globally, the strongest relationships were found between user counts and the total number of fires, total burned area, number of fire disaster events; country population levels and internet proliferation. Notably, at a country level, the strongest (and weakest) relationships between weekly user counts and fire activity were found in a diverse range of countries suggesting that a variety of hotspot data use situations exist and further investigation is needed to better understand EO active fire data usage.