Landsat Active Fire Detections for Canada in Near-Real-Time

NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System provides near-real-time active fire and thermal anomaly detections covering Canada, derived from the Landsat sensor family. The data is continuously updated, typically within 3 hours of satellite acquisition, and is available in SHP, KML, and CSV formats. Files are hosted by NASA and cover time windows of the last 24 hours, 48 hours, and 7 days.

Use Cases

• Monitor active wildfire spread based on near-real-time thermal anomaly detections.
• Analyze fire frequency and location patterns across Canada based on satellite-derived fire points.
• Create time-animated visualizations of fire progression based on the animated 48-hour KML files.
• Integrate fire detection data with other geospatial layers for risk assessment and resource allocation.

Strengths

• Data is updated within approximately 3 hours of satellite acquisition, enabling near-real-time monitoring.
• Covers Canada with data from Landsat 8 (since 2013) and Landsat 9 (since 2021), providing a multi-year record.
• Available in multiple geospatial formats (SHP, KML, CSV) for different analysis and visualization workflows.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

Collection Method

Derived from thermal anomaly detections from the Landsat sensor family.

Time Range

Landsat 8 data since 2013, Landsat 9 data since 2021; files cover last 24h, 48h, 7d.

Freshness

Continuously updated; last metadata update was 2026-05-13 14:45:28.375102.

Geography

Canada