District monthly panel
One record for each of 260 harmonised districts in every month from January 2001 to December 2024.
Ghana Fire Observatory
Data and provenance
Dataset scope, spatial units, temporal support, integrity checks, licence and public repository access
Public dataset
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Ghana fire panel dataset, 2001–2024
The authoritative repository contains district- and agro-climatic-zone-level monthly analytical panels, together with key-audit, manifest and merge-summary files.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31985559 · Licence: CC BY 4.0
Figshare is the public source for downloads, citation metadata, licence information and future version history.
Dataset dimensions
Two complete monthly panels
Both panels use a January 2001–December 2024 monthly spine and the same 111-column consolidated analytical schema.
| Panel | Units | Months per unit | Rows | Columns | Duplicate unit–month keys |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harmonised districts | 260 | 288 | 74,880 | 111 | 0 |
| Agro-climatic zones | 5 | 288 | 1,440 | 111 | 0 |
- 76,320
- Total panel rows
- 288
- Monthly positions per unit
- 100%
- Expected keys present in supplied audit
Release contents
Files provided through the repository
Zone monthly panel
One record for each of the five agro-climatic zones in every month across the same period.
Key audit
Expected and actual row totals, unique-key counts, duplicate-key checks, date bounds and schema width.
Manifest and merge summary
Source-family records, source hashes, support periods, consolidated schema information and merge-integrity counts.
Geography
Harmonised spatial units
The supporting geography contains 260 district features and five agro-climatic-zone features in EPSG:32630. Each district carries a stable identifier and its assigned zone context.
| Zone | Code | Districts | Share of 260 districts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sudan Savannah | SS | 20 | 7.7% |
| Guinea Savannah | GS | 45 | 17.3% |
| Transition | TZ | 27 | 10.4% |
| Forest | FZ | 110 | 42.3% |
| Coastal | CZ | 58 | 22.3% |
Source roles
Derived analytical data, not raw satellite observations
The release consolidates processed metrics from different satellite product families. Source roles remain distinct throughout the schema.
| Product family | Observation role | Examples of derived metrics | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| MODIS MCD64A1 Collection 6.1 | Burned area | Burned area, burned-pixel count, burned fraction | Mapped fire impact |
| MODIS active fire | Thermal activity | Detections, active days, fire-radiative-power summaries | Long-run observed fire activity |
| VIIRS 375 m active fire | Thermal activity | Detections, active days, fire-radiative-power summaries | Higher-resolution overlap-era activity |
Temporal support
Support periods are explicit
Every district and zone has a monthly record across the full 24-year spine.
The merged release uses support flags to distinguish overlap-era values from pre-support months.
January 2012 is excluded from the primary sensor-overlap analysis; complete-year summaries use 2013–2024.
| Panel | Structurally missing VIIRS rows | VIIRS-supported rows | Structurally missing 2012-baseline burned-area rows | Supported rows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| District | 34,320 | 40,560 | 34,320 | 40,560 |
| Agro-climatic zone | 660 | 780 | 660 | 780 |
Structural missingness indicates that a product is outside its supported period. It must not be interpreted as a zero-fire observation.
Integrity and provenance
Checks supplied with the release
Complete expected keys
The supplied audit reports 74,880 unique district keys and 1,440 unique zone keys, matching the expected row totals with no duplicate unit–month records.
Source-level provenance
The manifest records source families, file paths, run identifiers, source schema versions, support bounds and SHA-256 hashes for source files.
Merge integrity
The merge summary records row totals, unit totals, date bounds, schema width and structural-support counts for both panel levels.
Stable geography
The supporting district and zone geometry files contain the expected feature counts and valid geometries in the documented coordinate reference system.
Citation
Recommended dataset citation
Sey, Nana Ekow Nkwa (2026). Ghana fire panel dataset: monthly agro-climatic zone and district fire metrics, 2001–2024. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31985559
Licence
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Users should credit the dataset and retain the repository DOI.
Known limitations
- The panels are derived analytical datasets, not raw satellite observations.
- Satellite products differ in resolution, overpass timing, detection logic and measurement role.
- District values are spatial aggregates and do not represent address-level susceptibility.
- Harmonised district-to-zone assignment simplifies complex ecological boundaries.
- Structural missingness must remain distinct from valid zero observations.
- The data support research and planning analysis; they are not a live emergency-warning feed.