Fire is an important disturbance component of the terrestrial carbon cycle, and it is critical to understand spatiotemporal variations in fire occurrence and magnitude to better assess impacts on ecosystems and land-atmosphere carbon cycle exchanges. The magnitude and frequency of extreme fires have increased in recent decades despite recent reductions in total global burned area. Global earth system models use a variety of bottom-up techniques to simulate fire, while top-down models rely on satellite-based measurements of fire counts or fire radiative power. Here we present an updated fire model which combines fuel loads from a state-of-the-science terrestrial biosphere model with near-real-time burned area derived from satellite observations of fire counts. We compare our results with other global fire products that rely on different satellite measurements calibrated by external inventories, assessing both regional and temporal variations and their connections to environmental drivers such as soil moisture and atmospheric dryness. Finally, we evaluate the fire emissions from these disparate products within the context of atmospheric measurements of carbon monoxide and carbon-13 isotopes of carbon dioxide.