MODIS Near Real-Time Fire Locations and Thermal Anomalies

Active fire locations and thermal anomalies identified by NASA's MODIS satellite sensors. The data is processed by NASA's LANCE FIRMS system using the MOD14/MYD14 Fire and Thermal Anomalies algorithm. Collection 61 replaced Collection 6 in April 2021.

Use Cases

• Mapping fire pixel centroids flagged by the MOD14/MYD14 algorithm for wildfire spread analysis.
• Identifying thermal anomaly locations, including volcanic activity, from the 1km pixel flag data.
• Integrating SHP or TXT file attributes into near real-time alert systems for emergency response.
• Comparing fire detection results from Aqua (MYD14) and Terra (MOD14) swath products for sensor validation.

Strengths

• Data is provided in near real-time (NRT) for timely monitoring.
• Fire locations are identified at a 1km pixel resolution.
• Available in multiple formats including TXT and SHP files containing all attributes.

Limitations

• The thermal anomalies represent the center of a 1km pixel, not precise fire boundaries.
• Only TXT and SHP file formats contain the complete set of attributes.
• Collection 61 processing did not include updates to the core science algorithm.

Provenance

Source

NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).

Collection Method

Processed from MODIS MOD14/MYD14 Fire and Thermal Anomalies swath products.

Freshness

Near real-time (NRT)

Geography

Global