CONFEX: A Database for CONUS Fire EXtent

Abstract. This article presents the CONUS Fire EXtent (CONFEX) database. This database, based on the VIIRS S-NPP 375 m data product, provides wildfire perimeter, centroid, ignition location, start and end date for the period 2012–2023, for the CONUS and Alaska regions. The algorithm takes hotspot locations from VIIRS S-NPP, clusters them into actual wildfires based on DBSCAN clustering and calculates the perimeter and centroid of each cluster, attaching a geodata frame to each cluster or fire. When validated for some recent large fires against the CALFIRE database, an F1 score of 85–96 % and a CSI of 74–93 % were found, showing the efficiency of the algorithm in aggregating hotspots spatially and temporally accurately. This is the first publicly available high-resolution wildfire extent dataset developed for the CONUS and Alaska regions using VIIRS S-NPP 375 m data product. The database provides a valuable resource for researchers to understand the complexities of the fire regimes in the CONUS and Alaska regions.