DEA Fuel Moisture Content (Sentinel-2)

Version:: 1.0.0
Type:: Derivative, Raster
Resolution:: 20 m
Coverage:: 12 July 2015 to Present
Data updates:: Weekly frequency, Ongoing

Overview

Important

DEA Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) is not to be used for real-time emergency response or safety-of-life decisions.

About

Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) provides a measure of vegetation moisture by calculating the percentage of water mass relative to dry mass in living vegetation. Available for every Sentinel-2 satellite overpass since 2015, it enables valuable insights into vegetation moisture and flammability across the Australian landscape.

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For help accessing the data, see the Access tab.

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Code examples

Web Map Service (WMS)

Key specifications

For more specifications, see the Specifications tab.

Technical name	Geoscience Australia Sentinel-2 Fuel Moisture Content
Bands	fmc
DOI	10.26186/150554
Parent products	DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2A MSI), DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2B MSI), DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2C MSI)
Collection	Geoscience Australia Sentinel-2 Collection 3
Licence	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Cite this product

Data citation

Geoscience Australia, 2025. DEA Fuel Moisture Content (Sentinel-2). Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/150554

Paper citation

Yebra, M., Quan, X., Riaño, D., Rozas Larraondo, P., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., & Cary, G. J., 2018. A fuel moisture content and flammability monitoring methodology for continental Australia based on optical remote sensing. Remote Sensing of Environment, 212, 260–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.04.053

Publications

Yebra, M., Quan, X., Riaño, D., Rozas Larraondo, P., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., & Cary, G. J., 2018. A fuel moisture content and flammability monitoring methodology for continental Australia based on optical remote sensing. Remote Sensing of Environment, 212, 260–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.04.053

Description

Background

Australia’s hot, dry climate and vast bushland make it one of the most fire-prone regions on Earth. Understanding vegetation dryness is critical for managing bushfire risk.

One key measure used for this purpose is Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) which refers to the amount of water contained in vegetation, expressed as a percentage of its dry weight. FMC plays a vital role in fire management because it indicates how easily vegetation can ignite and sustain fire; lower FMC levels mean drier and more flammable fuel. Digital Earth Australia (DEA) FMC is a remotely sensed proxy of FMC.

Use constraints

This product is not meant to replace field measurements of fuel moisture. It is intended to be used in conjunction with that information and interpreted by people with expert knowledge.

Your use of, reliance on, and any further distribution of any aspect of the DEA Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) product is entirely at your own risk.

What this product offers

DEA Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) product is a remotely sensed proxy for the moisture content of vegetation. It estimates the percentage of water mass relative to dry mass in living vegetation based on its spectral signature. Vegetation moisture is a critical variable for understanding vegetation flammability and fire potential.

Values range from 0–300%, representing by weight percent the amount of water in leaves compared to dry plant material. A value of 0% would indicate that there is no water content. A value of 100% indicates there is an equal weight of water and dry plant material. A value of 300% would mean there is approximately three times as much water as dry plant material. Values in the range of 0–150% are particularly relevant to fire behaviour analysis, as this range is strongly associated with changes in vegetation flammability and the likelihood of ignition.

DEA FMC is derived from Sentinel-2 NBART satellite imagery at a 20 m resolution for all of Australia from 12 July 2015 to the present. It provides pixel-level FMC values for each corresponding Sentinel-2 scene, with masking applied to exclude clouds, cloud shadows, water, and terrain shadows.

Applications

Monitoring and mapping the dryness of vegetation across different landscapes.
Predicting and assessing vegetation flammability and fire risk, including fire spread and intensity.
Modelling fire risk over time and across different ecosystems with changing climate conditions.
Prioritising and evaluating fire, forestry, and utility agency management based on the dryness and the assessed fire risk of vegetation.

Please note that this product should not be used to make safety of life decisions.

Technical information

DEA Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) is a gridded dataset indicating the moisture content of vegetation. This product includes measurements taken between 12 July 2015 and the present (inclusive) from the Sentinel-2A, 2B, and 2C satellites. DEA FMC covers all of mainland Australia and Tasmania but excludes offshore territories. The dataset is updated automatically as each new Sentinel-2 scene is acquired and processed as Analysis Ready Data (ARD).

The calculation of DEA FMC is done using a random forest machine learning model which is an emulator of the model used in the MODIS-based Australian Flammability Monitoring System (AFMS) (Yebra et al, 2018). The inputs to the model are the Sentinel-2 bands (blue, green, red, red edge 1, 2, and 3, NIR 1 and 2, and SWIR 2 and 3). In addition, two normalised difference indices are used (NDVI Rouse (1973) and NDVII Hunt and Rock (1989)). All input bands are loaded at 20 × 20 m resolution. The visible light bands that have a resolution of 10 m are resampled using Bilinear sampling. Masking for cloud, cloud shadow, water, and terrain shadow are also applied.

Lineage

This product is based on the work of Dr. Marta Yebra and the team at the Bushfire Research Centre of Excellence at the Australian National University (ANU). Remotely sensed FMC was developed and delivered as the Australian Flammability Monitoring System (AFMS) with support from Natural Hazards Research Australia.

DEA FMC replaces the MODIS-based AFMS, improving the spatial resolution from 500 m to 20 m.

References

Quality

Limitations

This product depends on having clear skies in order to observe the landscape, as both cloud and smoke will obstruct the observation of the Earth’s surface. Furthermore, the three Sentinel-2 satellites (A, B, and C) which are the basis of this service each view a given 320 km wide strip of Australia once every 10 days. This means there will be up to a 5-day gap between observations of any point on the Australian continent. The observations show only what was visible at the time that the satellite passed overhead. Since weather conditions can change rapidly, the actual condition of vegetation on the ground may change between the last time that the satellite went overhead and the next time it passes the same location.

No decisions on life or property should be made based on this data. For local updates and alerts, please refer to your state emergency or fire service.

Quality assurance

Cloud masking is conducted using the Sentinel-2 Fmask algorithm. This algorithm’s performance on Sentinel-2 has known issues, in particular the issue of false negatives in cloud detection. This is due to Sentinel-2 A, B, and C lacking a thermal IR band which would be used for detecting clouds. At the time of publication, the Fmask cloud algorithm is the best choice available; however, in the future, other options may become available.

Accuracy

Validation campaigns are being undertaken to evaluate the accuracy of the remotely sensed FMC estimates across a range of vegetation types and environmental conditions. These field-based data collections provide important reference measurements that will support further refinement of the product and help ensure confidence in its use. Validation results and reference values will become available as more validation campaigns are completed.

Specifications

Product ID

The Product ID is ga_s2_fmc_3_v1. This ID is used to load data from the Open Data Cube (ODC), for example dc.load(product="ga_s2_fmc_3_v1", ...)

Bands

Bands are distinct layers of data within a product that can be loaded using the Open Data Cube (on the DEA Sandbox or NCI) or DEA’s STAC API. Note that the Coordinate Reference System (CRS) of these bands is Multiple UTM zone CRSs.

	Type	Units	Resolution	No-data	Aliases	Description
fmc	int16	-	20 m	-999	-	Fuel Moisture Content value, ranging from 0 to 300%.

Product information

This metadata provides general information about the product.

Product ID	ga_s2_fmc_3_v1	Used to load data from the Open Data Cube.
Short name	DEA Fuel Moisture Content (Sentinel-2)	The name that is commonly used to refer to the product.
Technical name	Geoscience Australia Sentinel-2 Fuel Moisture Content	The full technical name that refers to the product and its specific provider, sensors, and collection.
Version	1.0.0	The version number of the product.
Lineage type	Derivative	Derivative products are derived from other products.
Spatial type	Raster	Raster data consists of a grid of pixels.
Spatial resolution	20 m	The size of the pixels in the raster.
Temporal coverage	12 July 2015 to Present	The time span for which data is available.
Coordinate Reference System (CRS)	Multiple UTM zone CRSs	The method of mapping spatial data to the Earth’s surface.
Update frequency	Weekly	The expected frequency of data updates. Also called ‘Temporal resolution’.
Update activity	Ongoing	The activity status of data updates.
DOI	10.26186/150554	The Digital Object Identifier.
Catalogue ID	150554	The Data and Publications catalogue (eCat) ID.
Licence	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence	See the Credits tab.

Product categorisation

This metadata describes how the product relates to other products.

Parent products	DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2A MSI), DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2B MSI), DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Sentinel-2C MSI)
Collection	Geoscience Australia Sentinel-2 Collection 3
Tags	geoscience_australia_sentinel_collection_3, fuel_moisture_content, vegetation, hazards

Access

Access the data

DEA Maps	See it on a map	Learn how to use DEA Maps.
DEA Explorer	Data explorer	Learn how to use the DEA Explorer.
Data sources	Access the data on AWS	Learn how to access the data via AWS.
Code examples	Code examples	Learn how to use the DEA Sandbox.
Web services	Web Map Service (WMS)	Learn how to use DEA’s web services.

History

Version history

No previous versions are available.

Changelog

Version 1.0.0

The first version of DEA Fuel Moisture Content (FMC) was released in October 2025. It replaces the MODIS-based Australian Flammability Monitoring System (AFMS), improving the spatial resolution from 500 m to 20 m. This product is based on the work of Dr. Marta Yebra and the team at the Bushfire Research Centre of Excellence at the Australian National University (ANU) with support from Natural Hazards Research Australia.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

Credits

Acknowledgments

The fuel moisture content algorithm was developed by the Australian National University (ANU) with support from Natural Hazards Research Australia and is described in Yebra et al. (2018).

License and copyright

The DEA Fuel Moisture Content product is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. This product is provided subject to the Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability in section 5 of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.