Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/VNP47IMG
VNP47IMG·v002·dataset

How cleanly wildfires are burning (VIIRS, 375m)

VIIRS/NPP FILDA-2 Fire Modified Combustion Efficiency Product 6-min L2 Swath 375 V002
biosphere NASA LPCLOUD Level 2 active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. A look at how cleanly or smokily wildfires are burning. Each pass records where fires are, how much energy they're radiating, and a measure of combustion efficiency that hints at whether a fire is flaming hot or smoldering.

How it's made. Built from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite, which uses faint visible light at night to spot even small, cool fires and turn those readings into a fire product covering 6-minute strips of each orbit at 375-meter detail.

How & where you'd use it. Helps fire managers and air-quality researchers track active fires and understand how dirty their smoke is likely to be, since smoldering fires put out different pollutants than fast-flaming ones.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS › FIRE ECOLOGY › FIRE OCCURRENCELAND SURFACE › SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-01-19 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (VIIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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 NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) FIre Light Detection Algorithm-2 (FILDA-2) Modified Combustion Efficiency (MCE) Version 2 swath product (VNP47IMG) is produced in 6-minute orbit segments at 375 meter (m) resolution. The VNP47IMG product takes advantage of the rich information that visible band observation conveys at night to assess fire combustion efficiency and enhance fire detection. It also utilizes improvements made in fire detection algorithms to detect smaller and cooler fires. The VNP47IMG product includes 83 variables containing fire detection and retrievals of Radiative Power (FRP), fire Visible Energy Fraction (VEF), and Modified Combustion Efficiency (MCE). Known Issues * Known issues can be found in Section 5 of the User Guide. * For complete information about known issues please refer to the [MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website](https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/knownissue?sensor=VIIRS&as=5200).

Get the data

vnp47img_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VNP47IMG",
    version="002",
    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 LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.