Europe - VIIRS Active Fire Detections: Near-Real-Time Thermal Anomalies

Europe's near-real-time active fire and thermal anomaly detections from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS). The data is derived from the VIIRS sensor family (Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21) and is continuously updated, typically within 3 hours of satellite acquisition. Files are available in SHP, KML, and CSV formats for the last 24 hours, 48 hours, and 7 days.

Use Cases

• Monitor wildfire spread and intensity based on near-real-time thermal anomaly detection.
• Analyze historical fire patterns across Europe based on data spanning from 2011 to present.
• Integrate fire detection data into environmental risk models based on geographic (SHP, KML) formats.
• Generate alerts for active fire events based on data updated within 3 hours of satellite overpass.

Strengths

• Data is updated within 3 hours of satellite acquisition, enabling near-real-time monitoring.
• Provides a long-term record from the VIIRS sensor family, with Suomi-NPP data available since 2011.
• Offers multiple data formats (SHP, KML, CSV) and temporal windows (24h, 48h, 7d) for flexibility.

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 analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

Collection Method

Derived from the VIIRS sensor family aboard Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites.

Time Range

Suomi-NPP data since 2011, NOAA-20 since 2017, NOAA-21 since 2022; data files cover last 24h, 48h, 7d.

Freshness

Continuously updated; last metadata update was 2026-05-13 14:48:16.637081.

Geography

Europe