MODIS/Aqua Terra Thermal Anomalies and Fire Locations 1km NRT

NASA's FIRMS MODIS/Aqua Terra Thermal Anomalies/Fire locations 1km Near Real-Time (NRT) dataset identifies active fires and thermal anomalies like volcanoes. The data is processed by NASA's LANCE FIRMS using the MOD14/MYD14 swath products and represents the center of a 1km pixel flagged by the MODIS Fire and Thermal Anomalies algorithm. Collection 61 data replaced Collection 6 in April 2021, with processing changes focused on calibration improvements for the underlying Level 1B products.

Use Cases

• Monitor active wildfire locations and spread based on near real-time thermal anomaly detection.
• Analyze global fire activity patterns based on satellite-identified fire pixel centers.
• Track volcanic thermal activity based on the detection of non-fire thermal anomalies.
• Set up automated alert systems based on the email alert service mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Data is provided in near real-time by NASA's LANCE FIRMS system.
• Available in multiple formats including SHP and KML for GIS integration.
• Based on the established MODIS MOD14/MYD14 Fire and Thermal Anomalies algorithm.
• Covers a global spatial scale at a 1km pixel resolution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description notes that only TXT and SHP files contain all attributes; other formats may have reduced data.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).

Collection Method

Processed from MODIS Aqua and Terra satellite swath products (MOD14/MYD14) using the Giglio 2003 Fire and Thermal Anomalies algorithm.

Time Range

Near real-time coverage.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:46:39.561720; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage.