VIIRS Burned Area (VNP64A1)¶

VIIRS/NPP Burned Area Monthly L4 Global 500m SIN Grid V002 (VNP64A1, Suomi NPP VIIRS monthly burned area at 500 m)

Being replaced

At a glance¶

Note on period: Starts in March 2012 (Suomi NPP launched in October 2011). A CMR query on 2026-10-13 returned August 2026 as the latest month (produced 2026-10-06). With Suomi NPP delivery ending on 1 November 2026, October–November 2026 is likely to be the last month; how the final month will be handled has not been announced.

Overview¶

VNP64A1 is a monthly, global 500 m burned area product made by adapting the MODIS MCD64A1 Collection 6.1 algorithm to Suomi NPP VIIRS. Using 750 m VIIRS imagery and active fire detections, it applies dynamic thresholds to a burn-sensitive vegetation index and temporal texture and records the burn date of every burned 500 m cell. It shares the MCD64A1 grid and layer set, so existing code needs little change, and it is intended to carry the burned area record forward beyond MODIS.

What changes with the successor¶

VNP64A1 V001 → VNP64A1 V002 (Collection 2)¶

Transition: 2024-10

Collection 2 (V002), with a corrected cloud mask and calibration, was released on 22 October 2024. V001 had many false detections caused by cloud-mask artifacts, was released only on a limited basis, and was decommissioned on 31 July 2025.

Sources: VIIRS Version 2 Burned Area Data Product Released (Earthdata, 2024-10-22) · VNP64A1 V001 catalog entry (decommissioning note) · Giglio et al. (2025)

VNP64A1 C2 (Suomi NPP only) → VIIRS burned area Collection 3 (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20) Planned¶

The developers say a Collection 3 combining Suomi NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS is planned, with the file format moving to netCDF4. Because Suomi NPP delivery ends in November 2026, continuity of the burned area record depends on this product, but as of 2026-10-13 no release schedule has been published.

Sources: Giglio et al. (2025) — Collection 3 plans · VNP64 User Guide v1.1

Available variables¶

The five science data sets (SDS) in the VNP64 User Guide and LP DAAC layer information; names and meanings match MCD64A1. To save cost the files are produced in HDF4 (HDF-EOS2), with netCDF4 planned from Collection 3. There is no scale factor.

instantaneous mean accumulated maximum minimum static — instantaneous: value at the time stamp · mean/accumulated/maximum/minimum: over the indicated interval · static: does not change with time

Monthly burned area layers (500 m)¶

The full variable list is in the official documentation.

How to get the data¶

• NASA Earthdata Search (LP DAAC, Earthdata Cloud) — Web search and HTTPS download / earthaccess / direct S3 access in AWS us-west-2
  • short_name VNP64A1, version 002. Files are per-tile HDF (.hdf) and need a free Earthdata Login. The S3 prefix is s3://lp-prod-protected/VNP64A1.002/, with temporary credentials from https://data.lpdaac.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/s3credentials.
• AppEEARS — Area and point subsetting with reprojection (GeoTIFF, NetCDF4)
• LP DAAC product page (DOI landing page) — Documentation (User Guide, ATBD) and layer information
• NASA FIRMS (Burned Area mode) — Web map viewer
  • Since September 2025, monthly and annual VNP64A1 burned area can be overlaid on the MODIS products.

Example code¶

Same approach as the MCD64A1 example — only the short_name and version change, and the layer names are identical. Requires rasterio built against GDAL with HDF4 support.

# pip install earthaccess rasterio numpy
import earthaccess
import numpy as np
import rasterio

earthaccess.login()  # free NASA Earthdata account
results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VNP64A1", version="002",
    temporal=("2025-03-01", "2025-03-31"),
    bounding_box=(127, 35, 130, 39),   # (west, south, east, north)
)
files = earthaccess.download(results, "vnp64a1")

for f in files:
    with rasterio.open(f) as src:
        sds = [s for s in src.subdatasets if s.endswith("Burn Date")][0]
    with rasterio.open(sds) as b:
        burn = b.read(1)
    burned = (burn >= 1) & (burn <= 366)       # 0 unburned, -1 unmapped, -2 water
    print(f, burned.sum(), "pixels")

Practical tips¶

• The grid and layer names match MCD64A1, so code carries over, but the values do not. Over 2012–2023 VNP64A1 mapped 2–6% more global burned area every year, and the mean difference in Southeast Asia was 33%.
• Before joining the two products for trend work, check regional differences over the overlap period (March 2012 onward). The developers advise against simple concatenation for fine-scale trend analysis.
• A Suomi NPP VIIRS outage from 27 July to 10 August 2022 degraded the July and especially August 2022 products (User Guide known issues). The outages of 26–27 September and 2–6 November 2024 may also affect those months.
• Treat cropland burned area as low confidence. With no morning overpass, short-lived crop-residue fires are especially easy to miss.
• Suomi NPP data delivery ends on 1 November 2026. If you need burned area after November 2026, watch LP DAAC notices for the release of a NOAA-20-based successor (planned Collection 3). The current plan is to keep the existing VNP archive available, though that may change.
• Version 1 (VNP64A1.001) had many false detections along inland water edges and at high latitudes because of cloud-mask artifacts, was released only on a limited basis, and was decommissioned on 31 July 2025. Recompute any results based on 001 with 002.
• The data are on a sinusoidal projection. Use nearest-neighbour resampling when moving to a lat-lon grid; interpolation mixes dates.

Notices and change history¶

References for your paper¶

Dataset citation¶

VNP64A1 V002 (LP DAAC) — DOI 10.5067/VIIRS/VNP64A1.002

@misc{vnp64a1_v002,
  author    = {Giglio, Louis},
  title     = {{VIIRS/NPP} Burned Area Monthly {L4} Global 500m {SIN} Grid {V002}},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center},
  doi       = {10.5067/VIIRS/VNP64A1.002}
}

Reference papers¶

VIIRS burned area product, global validation and MODIS intercomparison — DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2025.115006

@article{giglio2025vnp64,
  author  = {Giglio, Louis and Boschetti, Luigi and Roy, David P. and Hall, Joanne V. and Zubkova, Maria and Humber, Michael and Huang, Haiyan and Oles, Vladyslav},
  title   = {The {NASA} {VIIRS} burned area product, global validation, and intercomparison with the {NASA} {MODIS} burned area product},
  journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment},
  volume  = {331},
  pages   = {115006},
  year    = {2025},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.rse.2025.115006}
}

Underlying algorithm (MODIS Collection 6) — DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2018.08.005

@article{giglio2018mcd64,
  author  = {Giglio, Louis and Boschetti, Luigi and Roy, David P. and Humber, Michael L. and Justice, Christopher O.},
  title   = {The Collection 6 {MODIS} burned area mapping algorithm and product},
  journal = {Remote Sensing of Environment},
  volume  = {217},
  pages   = {72--85},
  year    = {2018},
  doi     = {10.1016/j.rse.2018.08.005}
}

Acknowledgements¶

LP DAAC shares the data without restriction and encourages citation of the dataset DOI (EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance). Cite Giglio et al. (2025) for the product description and validation.

Information on the datasets used in this study was compiled with the help of the Korean Climate Data Navigator (KCDN) (Sim, 2026; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23300923).

Links¶

• LP DAAC VNP64A1 V002 (Earthdata catalog)
• VNP64 User Guide v1.1
• VNP64A1 ATBD
• VNP64A1 file specification (LAADS)
• NOAA NESDIS — cessation of Suomi NPP data
• Earthdata Forum — Suomi NPP cessation Q&A (archive retention plans)