Background

Until recently, natural resource managers have faced considerable challenges in obtaining timely satellite-derived information on vegetation fires that are burning within and around their management area. To be of most value, protected area managers require fire information to be delivered while fires are still burning, with minimal file sizes and in easy-to-use formats. FIRMS addresses these issues by delivering global near real-time fire information to users to support fire managers around the World.

FIRMS delivers active fires detected using the MODIS active fire locations processed by NASA's LANCE (Land, Atmosphere, Near real-time Capability for EOS).

The active fire locations are processed by LANCE using the standard MODIS MOD14/MYD14 Fire and Thermal Anomalies Product.

The fire detection code is identical to that used to process the science quality data. However, there will be differences in the locations of the fires detected due to geolocation differences. For more information on the fire data, see the MODIS Collection 5 Active Fire Product User's Guide. For more information on the algorithm, see Giglio, L., J. Descloitres, C. O. Justice, and Y. J. Kaufman. 2003. An enhanced contextual fire detection algorithm for MODIS. Remote Sensing of Environment, 87:273-282.

Each active fire location represents the center of a 1 km pixel that is flagged by the algorithm as containing a fire within the pixel.

FIRMS also offers monthly MODIS Burned Area (MCD45) images through Web Fire Mapper. Knowledge of the timing and the land area affected by fire is important to natural resource managers so that they may understand the impact of fire on vegetation, fauna and humans. The MODIS Burned area images are provided by the MODIS Fire Team.

GFIMS now operational at FAO

An operational version of FIRMS, called the Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS), has become part of the operational monitoring systems at the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). At FAO, GFIMS is hosted by the Natural Resources Mangement and Environment Department where it complements their existing suite of projects that deliver near real time information to ongoing monitoring and emergency projects, to other UN organizations as well as providing information to the general public.