Fire Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System

Wildland fires release significant amounts of carbon and greenhouse gases from Canada’s forests each year. With climate change influencing the frequency and severity of wildland fires, it is important to monitor and measure their emissions.

The Fire Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System (FireMARS) is an integrated system that provides:

• burned area polygons mapped nationally on an annual basis through the integration of data derived from satellite and provincial/territorial agencies
• an annual contribution to Canada’s National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System (NFCMARS) that calculates greenhouse gas emissions and removals from Canada’s managed forests. These estimates serve as input to Canada’s annual National Greenhouse Gas Inventory report to meet international greenhouse gas reporting requirements.

Key components

FireMARS is made up of:

• the National Burned Area Composite (NBAC), which maps the area of forest burned on a national scale for each year since 1972
• the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), which monitors daily fire weather and fire behaviour conditions across Canada
• the Canadian Fire Effects (CanFIRE) model, which estimates carbon emissions from the combustion of biomass by wildfires
• the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3), which models carbon stocks, carbon stock changes, and emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from Canada’s forests

FireMARS was developed at Natural Resources Canada by the Canadian Forest Service and the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation with support from the Canadian Space Agency.