Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/MASTER_FireSense_Spring_2025_2439
MASTER_FireSense_Spring_2025_2439·v1·dataset

Aircraft images of wildfires in California (spring 2025)

MASTER: FireSense, California and Southern US, Spring 2025
biosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 1B multiple
In plain English

What it measures. Detailed airborne images of wildfire areas in California and the southern U.S., captured in 50 color and heat bands (from visible light through thermal infrared) at about 10-meter detail.

How it's made. An airborne instrument called MASTER, flown on a NASA B200 aircraft during seven flights in spring 2025, recorded the imagery, which was then calibrated and georeferenced.

How & where you'd use it. Part of NASA's FireSense effort to improve U.S. wildland fire management, helping agencies see fire behavior, burned areas, and heat signatures in fine detail.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS › FIRE ECOLOGYHUMAN DIMENSIONS › NATURAL HAZARDS › WILDFIRESSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › THERMAL INFRAREDSPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE RADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2025-03-17 → 2025-04-18
  • Measured byB-200 (MASTER)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-116.044, 30.2467, -81.6656, 33.4811
  • Formatsmultiple
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

This dataset includes Level 1B (L1B) data products from the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument. The spectral data were collected as part of the FireSense project during 7 flights aboard a NASA B200 aircraft over California, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, U.S., 2025-03-17 to 2025-04-18. The FireSense project is focused on delivering NASA's unique Earth science and technological capabilities to operational agencies, striving towards measurable improvement in US wildland fire management. Data products include L1B georeferenced multispectral imagery of calibrated radiance in 50 bands covering wavelengths of 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers at approximately 10-meter spatial resolution. The L1B files are provided in HDF-4 and KMZ formats. In addition, the dataset includes the flight path, spectral band information, instrument configuration, ancillary notes, and summary information for each flight, and browse images derived from each L1B data file.

Get the data

master_firesense_spring_2025_2439_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MASTER_FireSense_Spring_2025_2439",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.