Where fires are burning, near real-time (Suomi-NPP, 375 m)
What it measures. Locations of active fires and other hot spots, detected pixel by pixel in near real time at 375 m resolution, distinguishing fire from land, water, and clouds.
How it's made. Generated from VIIRS data on the Suomi-NPP satellite using a multi-channel method that spots sub-pixel heat, continuing the legacy of the older MODIS fire product.
How & where you'd use it. Widely used for spotting wildfires quickly, supporting firefighting, emergency response, and smoke and burned-area monitoring, with fire locations delivered soon after the satellite passes.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2020-02-14 → ongoing
- Measured bySUOMI-NPP (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 VNP14IMG_NRT is a Near Real Time (NRT) S-NPP/VIIRS 375 m active fire detection data product (Schroeder 2014). The product is built on the EOS/MODIS fire product heritage [Kaufman et al., 1998; Giglio et al., 2003], using a multi-spectral contextual algorithm to identify sub-pixel fire activity and other thermal anomalies in the Level 1 (swath) input data. 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 PDF from UMD
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="VNP14IMG_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.