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There is interest in the global community on how fire regimes are changing as a function of changing demographics and climate. The ground‐based data to monitor such trends in fire activity are inadequate at the global scale. Satellite observations provide a basis for such a monitoring system. In this study, a set of metrics were developed from 6 years of MODIS active fire data. The metrics were grouped into eight classes representing three axes of fire activity: density, season duration and interannual variability. These groups were compared with biophysical and human explanatory variables on a global scale. We found that more than 30% of the land surface has a significant fire frequency. The most extensive fire class exhibited high fire density, low duration and high variability and was found in boreal and tropical wet and dry environments. A high association was found between population distribution and fire …