JRC Data Catalogue
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Fire Database in the European Forest Fire Information System (version 2-3-1)

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This dataset series refers to the Fire Database, containing the forest fire information compiled by countries in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, in the context of the development of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). ▷_How to cite: see below_◁

The Regulation EEC No 804/94 (now expired) established a Community system of information on forest fires for which a systematic collection of a minimum set of data on each fire occurring, the so called “Common Core”, had to be carried out by the Member States participating in the system. This regulation was replaced by the Forest Focus regulation in 2003.

Following the Forest Focus regulation (EC) No 2152/2003, concerning monitoring of forests and environment interactions in the Community, the forest fire common core data was continued to be recorded in order to collect comparable information on forest fires at Community level.

Since 2000 the forest fire data provided each year by individual EU Member States and other countries in Europe, Middle East and North Africa are checked, stored and managed by JRC within EFFIS. At present the database contains fire data from 22 countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey.

Updated annual country totals supplied separately by the same authorities are available for download in EFFIS. Users can request custom annual or monthly summaries of burnt area or number of fires by country, NUTS2 or NUTS3 region, from the Point of contact.

__How to cite__ - When using these data, please cite the relevant data sources. A suggested citation is included in the following:

- Camia, A., Houston Durrant, T., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., 2014. The European Fire Database: technical specifications and data submission. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. IBSN:978-92-79-35929-3, https://doi.org/10.2788/2175

- San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Houston Durrant, T., Boca, R., Libertà, G., Branco, A., de Rigo, D., Ferrari, D., Maianti, P., Artés Vivancos, T., Schulte, E., Loffler, P., Benchikha, A., Abbas, M., Humer, F., Konstantinov, V., Pešut, I., Petkoviček, S., Papageorgiou, K., Toumasis, I., Kütt, V., Kõiv, K., Ruuska, R., Anastasov, T., Timovska, M., Michaut, P., Joannelle, P., Lachmann, M., Pavlidou, K., Debreceni, P., Nagy, D., Nugent, C., Di Fonzo, M., Leisavnieks, E., Jaunķiķis, Z., Mitri, G., Repšienė, S., Assali, F., Mharzi Alaoui, H., Botnen, D., Piwnicki, J., Szczygieł, R., Janeira, M., Borges, A., Sbirnea, R., Mara, S., Eritsov, A., Longauerová, V., Jakša, J., Enriquez, E., Lopez, A., Sandahl, L., Reinhard, M., Conedera, M., Pezzatti, B., Dursun, K. T., Baltaci, U., Moffat, A., 2017. Forest fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa 2016. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. ISBN:978-92-79-71292-0, https://doi.org/10.2760/17690

How to cite

EFFIS team (2026): Fire Database in the European Forest Fire Information System (version 2-3-1). European Commission, Joint Research Centre [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/JRC.KCNZPQ0 PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/678deb39-e35f-4236-a984-42d69bf95dec

Keywords

CopernicusCopernicus Emergency Management ServiceEuropean Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS)Modelled family of quantities: Fire Database

Data access

CSV

CSV – comma-separated values – files store tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas.

Use conditions
European Commission reuse notice

According to the European Commission reuse notice, reuse is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged. The reuse policy of the European Commission is implemented by the Decision of 12 December 2011. The general principle of reuse can be subject to conditions which may be specified in individual copyright notices. Therefore users are advised to refer to the copyright notices of the individual websites maintained under Europa and of the individual documents. Reuse is not applicable to documents subject to intellectual property rights of third parties.

Access conditions
No limitations

Anybody can directly and anonymously access the data, without being required to register or authenticate.

  • Data download service for thematic typologies of data related to wildfires in Europe (including updated annual country totals from the Fire Database).

Spatial coverage

Temporal coverage

From date To date
1980-01-01 N/A

Lineage information

Fire Database information is based on data files submitted annually by the contributing countries. Data from individual fire events are aggregated by NUTS3 region and month for dissemination. Not every country provides information from every fire so some regions and years may be under-represented or completely missing. Annual totals supplied separately by the same authorities may be used to assess the extent of missing data. European NUTS administrative regions have variable shape and area. Considering NUTS3 regions, the radius of a circle with equivalent area in 95 % of the regions would be less than 65 km (see [EUROSTAT data](http://europa.eu/!BW88cB); to better assess the variable area of the NUTS3 regions, the quantiles 90 % and 99 % of the equivalent radius would respectively be about 50 km, and about 90 km).

Additional information

Published by
European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Contact email
jrc-data-support (at) ec.europa.eu
Update frequency
unknown

The event occurs with unknown regularity.

Language(s)
English

English is a member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. It is an official language of almost 60 sovereign states and is now a global lingua franca.It is the third-most-common native language in the world and it is widely learned as a second language.

Data theme(s)
Environment

dataset theme covering the domain of environment, defined as the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that impact human survival and economic activity

Issued date
2018-09-28
Created date
02 Mar 2026 17:06
Modified date
26 Aug 2020 15:56
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Dataset identifier
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