@article{fdi:010076110,
  title = {{V}arying relationships between fire radiative power and fire size at a global scale},
  author = {{L}aurent, {P}. and {M}ouillot, {F}lorent and {M}oreno, {M}. {V}. and {Y}ue, {C}. and {C}iais, {P}.},
  editor = {},
  language = {{ENG}},
  abstract = {{V}egetation fires are an important process in the {E}arth system. {F}ire intensity locally impacts fuel consumption, damage to the vegetation, chemical composition of fire emissions and also how fires spread across landscapes. {I}t has been observed that fire occurrence, defined as the frequency of active fires detected by the {MODIS} sensor, is related to intensity with a hump-shaped empirical relation, meaning that occurrence reaches a maximum at intermediate fire intensity. {R}aw burned area products obtained from remote sensing can not discriminate between ignition and propagation processes. {T}o go beyond burned area and to test if fire size is driven by fire intensity at a global scale as expected from empirical fire spread models, we used the newly delivered global {FRY} database, which provides fire patch functional traits based on satellite observation, including fire patch size, and the fire radiative power measures from the {MCD}14{ML} dataset. {T}his paper describes the varying relationships between fire size and fire radiative power across biomes at a global scale. {W}e show that in most fire regions of the world defined by the {GFED} database, the linear relationship between fire radiative power and fire patch size saturates for a threshold of intermediate-intensity fires. {T}he value of this threshold differs from one region to another and depends on vegetation type. {I}n the most fire-prone savanna regions, once this threshold is reached, fire size decreases for the most intense fires, which mostly happen in the late fire season. {A}ccording to the percolation theory, we suggest that the decrease in fire size for more intense late season fires is a consequence of the in-creasing fragmentation of fuel continuity throughout the fire season and suggest that landscape-scale feedbacks should be developed in global fire modules.},
  keywords = {{MONDE}},
  booktitle = {},
  journal = {{B}iogeosciences},
  volume = {16},
  numero = {2},
  pages = {275--288},
  ISSN = {1726-4170},
  year = {2019},
  DOI = {10.5194/bg-16-275-2019},
  URL = {https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010076110},
}