Where fires are burning, near real-time (VIIRS, NOAA-20, 375 m)
What it measures. Near real-time locations of active fires, pinpointed at a fine 375-meter resolution. It flags which pixels contain a burning fire but doesn't measure fire intensity within each pixel.
How it's made. Generated from the VIIRS instrument aboard the NOAA-20 satellite, using all five of its 375 m channels to separate fire from land, water, and cloud, and delivered quickly through NASA's near real-time system.
How & where you'd use it. Well suited to fire management, including near real-time alert systems, and to mapping the spread and edges of wildfires as they happen.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2020-07-15 → ongoing
- Measured byNOAA-20 (VIIRS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -80, 180, 80
- FormatsnetCDF-4
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Map vegetation, forests and biomass
- Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
- Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description
The VJ114IMG_NRT is a Near Real Time (NRT) NOAA-20 (formally JPSS-1) /VIIRS 375 m active fire detection data product. Compared to other coarser resolution (≥1km) satellite fire detection products, the improved 375 m data provide greater response over fires of relatively small areas, as well as improved mapping of large fire perimeters. Consequently, the data are well suited for use in support of fire management (e.g., near real-time alert systems), as well as other science applications requiring improved fire mapping fidelity. Due to frequent data saturation issues, the current 375 m fire product provides detection information only with no sub-pixel fire characterization. The algorithm uses all five 375 m VIIRS channels to detect fires and separate land, water, and cloud pixels in the image. Additional 750 m channels complement the available VIIRS multispectral data. Those channels are used as input to the baseline active fire detection product, which provides continuity to the EOS/MODIS 1 km Fire and Thermal Anomalies product. The VIIRS 375 m fire detection data is a Level 2 product based on the input Science Data Record (SDR) Level 1 swath format. The NRT product is currently available through NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE). The data are formatted as NetCDF4 files. Complementary ASCII files containing the short list of fire pixels detected are also available through LANCE FIRMS processing systems. For more information read: Schroeder, W., Oliva, P., Giglio, L., & Csiszar, I. A. (2014). The New VIIRS 375m active fire detection data product: algorithm description and initial assessment. Remote Sensing of Environment, 143, 85-96. doi:10.1016/j.rse.2013.12.008
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="VJ114IMG_NRT",
version="2",
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 LANCEMODISBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.