VIIRS Active Fire Detections for the Contiguous US and Hawaii
Updated 23d ago
27filesSHP
Available on 1 platform
Sign in to view source links and access this dataset
Description
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)
License is us-pd (public domain). Each resource is an external link to a NASA-hosted file.