Area burned by wildfires by land cover type
Use escrito dataset owid.area-burned-wildfires-by-type
Area of shrubland and grassland burnt by wildfires each year, in hectares. Includes open and closed shrublands and grasslands without a significant tree cover. Area of savanna land burnt by wildfires each year, in hectares. Savannas are tropical and subtropical grasslands with scattered trees and shrubs, and are the most fire-prone land type globally. Area of forest land burnt by wildfires each year, in hectares. Includes all tree-covered land such as tropical rainforests, boreal forests, and mixed woodlands. Area of agricultural land burnt by wildfires each year, in hectares. Includes fields used for crops, as well as mixed cropland and natural vegetation areas.
Cite as: Global Wildfire Information System (2026) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Yearly burned area in shrublands and grasslands – GWIS (MODIS)” [dataset]. Global Wildfire Information System, “Global Yearly Burned Area by Land Cover Type” [original data].
- Publisher
- Our World in Data
- Tier
- Official
- Covers
- 2002–2025
- Places
- Countries, regions and groups of the world
- Updated
- annual
- Last modified
- 2026-10-12
- Units
- hectares
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Method
- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/area-burned-wildfires-by-type
Columns
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| entity | text | country, region or group |
| code | text | ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, OWID_ for OWID's own groups, empty for most regions |
| year | integer | |
| shrublands_grasslands | number | Yearly burned area in shrublands and grasslands (hectares) |
| savannas | number | Yearly burned area in savannas (hectares) |
| forest | number | Yearly burned area in forests (hectares) |
| croplands | number | Yearly burned area in croplands (hectares) |
Dimensions
| Name | Values |
|---|---|
| entity | |
| year |