VIIRS Active Fire Detections for the Contiguous US and Hawaii

NASA FIRMS provides near-real-time active fire and thermal anomaly detections for the USA (Contiguous & Hawaii) from the VIIRS sensor family. The data is updated continuously, typically within 3 hours of satellite acquisition, and is available in SHP, KML, and CSV formats for time windows of the last 24 hours, 48 hours, and 7 days.

Use Cases

• Monitor wildfire spread and intensity based on near-real-time thermal anomaly detections.
• Analyze historical fire activity patterns based on data available for the last 7 days.
• Integrate fire location data into GIS systems for resource management based on SHP and KML formats.
• Develop early warning systems based on the 3-hour update latency from satellite acquisition.

Strengths

• Data is updated near-real-time, typically within 3 hours of satellite acquisition.
• Provides coverage for the contiguous United States and Hawaii.
• Offers data in multiple geospatial formats (SHP, KML, CSV) for different use cases.
• Sourced from NASA's authoritative Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specified coverage area (USA Contiguous & Hawaii).

Provenance

Source

NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)

Collection Method

Derived from the VIIRS sensor family (Suomi-NPP since 2011, NOAA-20 since 2017, NOAA-21 since 2022).

Time Range

Near-real-time with historical windows of 24h, 48h, and 7d.

Freshness

Continuously updated; last metadata update was 2026-05-13.

Geography

USA (Contiguous & Hawaii)